Oblivious
by bayloo7
Summary: Is their father just an abusive crazy man, or is he telling his children the truth about some sort of 'shadow world? Clary and Jon run away from their lunatic father and straight into the world he'd always been rambling on and on about. What awaits them after they escape their father? Is it love? Or is it war?
1. Run

**Chapter 1: Run Forest Run!**

**Clary's POV**

Like the flick of a switch, my life was changed completely. I left everything I've ever known and ran as far away as my legs could carry me. There aren't any words to describe what I'm feeling at this moment other than numb. I've been running since three in the morning with no break, and as dawn approaches I fear I might be hitting my limit. I take a deep breath as I try to push back the pain pulsating in my feet. This isn't how I'd planned on escaping, but anything is better than nothing.

I can't really remember a time when my life was actually happy. That's the goal of course but getting there has been harder than I would have expected. Playing the blame game usually wouldn't be my thing, but it's a plain fact that there is someone to blame for the happiness being sucked so violently out of my life.

My lunatic father.

As a kid, my mother would make Jon and I breakfast in the mornings, but most days my dad would come in and start fighting with mom. The fights were never about anything, they were just something my dad would always cause. It was almost as if yelling was his water or his heroine, something he physically needed. I remember the day when the light began to drain out of my mother's eyes. When she finally had enough of his bullshit and started letting go of her grip on life, on us. Jon, my older brother, was around the age of 10 and I was around 8 or 9. She went from being our loving mother and protector to a stranger overnight. I don't blame her though. Going silent was her way of coping with the constant trauma.

Father quickly turned to blaming Jon and I for the change in our mom. It started out with fights similar to the ones he would start with ma, but soon they turned into a real life hell. I had never seen love from my father, only disgust and anger, and when mom checked out I began to see hate from him constantly. Normal became a word so far from ordinary for my brother and I. To sum it up, our father knows how to throw a punch.

He was really hard on Jonathan and I over the years. I'm not sure what drugs he was on, but he had to be on something. Father would often ramble on and on about a hidden shadow world. He would try to scare me by telling stories of demons roaming the earth. Of werewolves and vampires. But Jon and I knew that he was nothing more than a doped up lunatic and pushed those lies out of our minds. Despite us pushing the stories away, father continued to obsess over them. He would make Jonathan and I train in the basement with him until our legs were too weak to hold our weight as a precaution for 'demon attacks'. We are both highly skilled in combat, for no absolute reason, and know how to use a large variety of weapons. It's safe to say that neither of us would lose a fight if ever caught off guard on the streets. But even though we are trained and skilled in fighting, neither of us could ever find the courage to fight our father.

Even though neither of us believed any of his nonsense, the stories he would tell effected both of us outside of our time with him. It's very odd, but we had both seen things outside of our home, like a fairy or something of that sort. Before Jonathan had told me about the things he had seen, I was convinced I was going crazy. I'd even considered that my psycho father was actually telling the truth for a small point in time. I guess that just goes to show how deep someone's crazy fantasies can get engrained into your head.

My morning had been unexpected to say the least. I was woken up around 2 this morning to my father yelling in the living room. Nothing new. He was highly intoxicated and was screaming about a ravenor demon being in the house. My brother and I ran out to put him back to bed when he took a good swing at nothing and ended up knocking me right in the face.

I don't really know what got into Jon, but he attacked father and told me to run. He was always somewhat over protective of me. I was reluctant to run at first because I didn't want to leave him. Jon and I had been planning an escape for a solid year before tonight, and this was not what we'd had in mind. We had fake IDs already made, and enough money stashed away to last a good month without either of us needing a job.

I shook out of my thoughts as I turned the corner into a small alley and plopped down on the ground. With my back leaned up against the brick wall behind me I tried to slow my breathing and think of a plan. Jon and I had designated a certain bar as our meet up place in case we were ever separated, so I guess I'll head over there and wait for him. Hopefully he can get out of the house before father sobers up too much to be able to stop him.

After my breathing returned to normal, I made my way over to the bar. This specific bar that we chose functions as a coffee shop/brunch place during the day and a bar after 7pm. I'd only ever been here once before with Jonathan to scope it out, but I'd never actually bought anything. I made my way over to a table, trying to look normal. I was lucky that I'd picked out pajamas last night that look normal enough to wear out in public. I had on a large t-shirt with a monkey on it sitting on a throne of bananas, and my shorts were just black Nike shorts.

"Hi there, what can I getcha this mornin?" I looked up, startled by the waitress. She looked young, probably still in high school. Her blonde hair, obviously dyed, was tied back in an effortless bun and she was looking at me with a small smile on her face.

"Um..hi. Sorry, I just woke up and I'm still a little out of it," just a little white lie, "could I get an order of your 'Famous Biscuits & Gravy' and a coffee please?"

The woman scribbled my order down, "Alrighty! Is there anyone else coming to join you? Just in case you want to order them something to come out with yours?"

Jon. He better show up because if he doesn't then I have no way of paying for any of this. "Oh, yes could I get a second coffee and an omelet?"

"Yes ma'am. That'll be right out."

I tapped my fingers on the table, a nervous habit I haven't been able to get rid of yet and looked around the shop. There were two other tables in here with me. One was an old couple eating what looked to be oatmeal next to one of the windows and the other table was a single man drinking several glasses of water. Just from the looks of him sitting there, I'd assume he's been here all night at the bar.

A half hour flew by as I sat there and worried about my brother. In that time our food had come out and I'd already refilled my coffee twice. I shoved a large piece of biscuit into my mouth just as the shop's door slid open. My nerves lit up, hoping the new customer would be Jonathan, but it definitely wasn't him. This guy had golden hair and walked in with a confidence I'd never seen. He seemed to exude it. As his eyes landed on mine, I suddenly realized that I'd been full on checking him out. He smirked and winked at me before grabbing his own table across the bar.

As I took a moment to mentally smack myself in the face for looking so awkward in front of the golden god, my brother entered the shop and joined me.

"You made it here safe?" He asked as he examined the situation in the bar.

"I ran for hours, but I'd say I'm feeling pretty good after having my third cup of coffee."

He looked at me and laughed. "Let me see your face. He hit you pretty hard."

"I'm fine really. Just gonna have a nice new bruise to add to the collection." None of this is funny, but cracking jokes seem to help our situation feel a little less awful.

"I'm sorry…I should have taken the hit. I just hate it when he puts his hands on you." We both sat in silence for a few minutes, taking in all of the pain my father brings.

"Here take these," he extended his hand out to me with a handful of my clothes from home, "figured you'd want to change out of your jammies."

I thanked Jon and went to the bathroom to quickly change. As I headed back to my table I could feel eyes on me. It took a second to pin down whose eyes they were, but when I figured it out I had to refrain from letting my jaw drop. The golden man was watching me, and he wasn't making any effort to hide it.

"Are you alright?" Jon asked.

I took a deep breath in as I tried to hide my blushing, "I'm fine. Thank you again for the clothes. I was feeling weird being in my pajamas in here. So, what happened after I ran?"

Jonathan took another glance around the shop to make sure none of father's goons had followed us here. "He barely noticed you had left. He was too busy throwing punches into nothing. He kept going on and on about some demon coming at him."

"He called it a ravenor right?" I asked as the memory of last night flashed back through my mind.

Jon nodded. "Yeah that sounds about right. He said it was telling him things about a circle forming," he shook his head as if trying to rid himself of the weirdness of it all, "he started yelling about being the king of demons."

My eyes widened as I imagined those words coming out of father's mouth. "The king of demons? Why would he want to be the devil?"

"I-I don't know. I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of the things he was saying. I couldn't really handle much more after that, so I gathered our things we'd set aside for the escape." There was a bag sitting next to Jon's feet that I hadn't noticed until he stared rumbling through it. "Here are the ID's and all the cash we'd saved up plus some more I found lying in the kitchen on my way out."

I looked over at the golden boy to see that he had moved from a comfortable position to one where he was leaning forward on his table, tensed. He seemed to be focused on absolutely nothing, completely in a daze. Gosh, what I would give to be the thing he was focused on.

"I forgot to ask, but how did you get here Jon?"

His familiar smirk appeared on his face, "I may or may not have hijacked dad's Harley." My eyes widened in a mix of awe and fear. "I knew it was his baby, so it would piss him off to have it stolen. Plus, it was full of gas."

I smacked Jon lightly on the shoulder. "If he finds us he might actually kill you this time."

"What, you think I should have taken the bicycle with the flat tires? Or better, I could have stolen the totaled 2003 Nissan Altima."

I rolled my eyes, "You're right. A motorcycle will be more fun anyways."

"Now there's the sister I love."

Jon and I planned out our aliases for our new lives while he finished off his omelet and coffee. We needed to have a plan that matched up well with what the other person said if anyone ever ended up asking. After a while we decided that we would stay siblings and that our parents died in a car crash, so we'd been on our own for a couple years. We would have no other family and would have dropped out of school to work to pay the bills. We came up with a few other minor details that might come in handy later on and that was it.

Before we got up to leave, I took another glance at the blonde god to see that he was relaxed again, but still tensed. There was something about him that felt intriguing to me. I'm not really sure what it is, but I feel like I need to go talk to him. And it's not even a romantic desire, sure that is there, but this is just some pull to him.

I assume he could feel my eyes on him, because he looked over and met my eyes again. The corners of his lips raised as our eyes met and he ran his fingers through his hair. Even his eyes look gold. He was wearing full black, which I found slightly odd yet sexy all at the same time. The black gave him a bad boy vibe that his outward confidence totally fits in with.

"Clary are you ready to head out apartment searching?" Jon asked, effectively pulling my eyes from Hunky McHunkster.

"Um, yeah let's go." I followed Jonathan out the door and could feel the golden eyes watching me like a hawk. I was somewhat sad as we mounted the motorcycle and drove off to our new lives. I wonder if I'll ever see that golden god of a man again.

**Hunky McHunkster's POV**

I watched her leave with who I believe to be her brother. Her red curls were poking out of her bun, and I had to fight the urge to run over there and set them free. She was pretty short but seemed to have a personality in the way she was talking to her brother. They didn't really look like siblings to me. I mean they have the same green eyes, but his hair is almost a platinum blond color while the girls is red. He's above average in height and she's below average in height. From outer looks they seem to be polar opposites.

The brother, I believe she called him Jonathan, threw their small bag over his shoulders before putting a helmet on his sister and then another on himself. They got on a motorcycle and flew down 15th street. I knew that it would be easier to follow them if I was higher up, so I climbed the nearest six story building and began running and building hopping after them.

I just couldn't let them go. Not after what I'd over heard. Neither of them sounded like they knew what the shadow world truly was, or how serious the things they were talking about actually were. But they've definitely been told of the shadow world at some point. And if what they said had any sort of truth to it, then that means he's alive. That means that Valentine is still alive.

**Author note:**

** Hi readers! So, if you haven't got it yet, this is an alternate version of the story where Valentine's memory of the circle and the shadow world have been partially removed from his mind at some point in his life. You don't know when yet, so that means you don't know if the circle ever happened or if it was planned and didn't happen. You also don't know whether Jonathan was born with demon blood or Clary born with extra angel blood. All of these things you will find out in chapter 2 which should be out within the next few days (probs tomorrow if we are being honest).**

** But yeah, THANK YOU SO FLIPPIN MUCH for reading this chapter. I hope EVERYONE loved it! It would mean the world to hear y'all's thoughts in the reviews. Lookin forward to having you guys back for chapter 2! Happy Saturday!**


	2. New

**Chapter 2: New Life**

**Jace's POV**

I followed the two mundies for several hours while they searched for a new place to live. Millions of questions kept flooding my mind. Could they truly not know anything about our world? From the sound of it, they've both heard plenty about it.

I peeked around the side of the building next to me, to watch the mundies walking into their 40th apartment of the day. Usually I'd followed them in, glamoured of course, but I've gotten lazy. They are either looking for something very specific, or they are really picky when it comes to buying apartments. This was a good neighborhood if they were on the run though. It's very busy, so whoever is looking for them would have a hard time finding them through all of the chaos.

"I think this is the one," a girl spoke from a small distance away. I knew the voice right when it hit my ears. Red.

I peeked around the corner again to see the siblings standing in front of the apartment's front door. They argued for a minute about whether or not to buy it, but finally decided it was the one and went back inside. I knew I needed to figure out their room number, so I made sure my glamour rune was still intact and followed the two inside.

I'm sure Hodge will be pissed when I come home late, but this is important. I can feel it.

It wasn't hard to find the mundies. They were handing a large sum of cash to the lady at the front desk, who exchanged the cash for two silver keys. It wasn't long before they went up to their room and locked the door on me. As much as I wanted to continue eavesdropping on Red, I got all I needed.

Room #687.

**Fast forward 30 minutes**

The tension in the air was thick as I listened to a very upset Hodge. "You understand what rules are correct? Because you don't seem to follow any of the rules I set up."

"I understand your rules Hodge, but when a situation is really important or there's hot chicks involved, rules don't apply anymore."

Both Alec and Hodge rolled their eyes at me. Izzy was nowhere to be found. "Okay then what was so important about this situation?" Alec asked, "and don't tell me it was important because hot girls were spoon feeding you Takis again. Something like that can only happen once."

"You'd be surprised how often something like that can happen Alec," I smiled at him as the memory of a bucket of honey and Kaelie flashed through my mind, "but that's not the point. The reason I was out past curfew was because I found something. Well not a something, but a someone."

"Go on," Hodge said as he crossed his arms.

"Well, I was minding my own business when my eyes landed on some beautiful red curls belongin-"

"So, it was for a chick again?" Alec shook his head at me like I'd burned his waffles or something cruel like that.

"Shhh and listen. The curls belonged to a normal mundie girl in the cafe sitting by herself. Not long after I got there a guy joined her, so me being curious who he was…I listened in to their conversation. Turns out he's her brother, so yay me, but they were talking about demons being in their home."

Hodge squinted at me like he was trying to read my face for lies and truth.

"Weird right?" I raised my eyebrows and continued, "This is when it started getting interesting. They are on the run from their father, who they claimed was talking to a demon in their house. They said, and I quote 'it was telling him things about a circle forming and soon after he started yelling about being the king of demons'."

I paused as the boys took in the new information. Judging by their confused, yet intrigued faces, I'd say we won this one. "You can't tell me that's not important intel," I said.

Hodge let out a deep breath of defeat. "What did they look like?"

"The girl was short with red hair and green eyes and the boy was a little over six feet, white blonde hair and green eyes. Sound familiar to either of you?"

Alec shook his head, but Hodge hesitated. He must recognize something in their descriptions.

"And you're sure they weren't shadowhunters?" He asked.

"They looked like your average mundanes. No sign of runes, no voyance runes, nothing." I thought about the siblings in my head making sure I wasn't missing anything when I remembered the bruises. I didn't really think much of them at first, but they could mean something to this odd situation. "Actually, both of them did have more scarring than the average person and did have bruises. It sounded like their father might get a little handsy."

"Interesting. I'll look into them to see if I can find anything in our records. For now, you boys can leave me be."

Alec gave me the silent treatment while we walked down the hall to our rooms. I swear sometimes he can be such a baby. "Earth to Alec?"

"Did you forget we were supposed to train together today?"

"No. I have energy right now if you're ready to get your ass kicked."

His glare turned soft. "Takis now, your ass kicking later?"

"I'm always down for some Takis Alec. Let's go."

**Clary's POV**

"I just feel bad Jon."

"Don't waste your energy on that. If she wanted to come with us, then she would have said something when we asked. That's on her, not me and definitely not you."

He was right, but it still hurt to think of her alone with him. I'm sure he turned into a complete monster after he realized that we left him. I shudder at the thought of my father.

We had gone on a shopping run earlier to get new clothes and food for the week. I was sitting on Jon's bed as he folded up his black t-shirts. Our apartment was very nice considering the price we got it for. There are two bedrooms, a living space with a kitchen space attached to it. The bathroom is a Jack and Jill that we are sharing, but the best part of the apartment is the office room. We'd decided to turn it into our new training space. Back home we'd been forced to learn to fight and train, but now it might be the only thing that can protect us from father if he ever finds us.

"Do you ever wonder what life would be like if father's lies were real?" I asked.

There was a long silence in the room. I assume Jon was pondering the question. "You know I've spent a lot of time thinking about it all. Sometimes it feels like that world makes more sense than the one we've been living, but it's not real. There's no point to keep egging it on when we have to live in this world."

"I know, I know. I just can't help but think about it. I kind of wish it were real. The shadow world I mean."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Just the way father would speak of the hunters and how they could be invisible if they wanted to. It just sounds like that would be cool."

"It would be cool. But there would also be demons trying to eat you all the time, so I'd say that cancels out the coolness, don't you?" Jon asked.

I frowned at the thought of demons, "Yeah. I think if demons were actually roaming the earth right now I'd never feel safe ever again."

Suddenly, I heard growling in our room. My mind instantly went to imaginary demons and I tensed. Jon started laughing at me as I realized it was just his stomach. "Stop laughing at me! All this talk about demons has got me nervous."

"I'm sorry! I can't help that I'm hungry. You wanna see what kind of take out is around the apartment?"

"Yes!"

We searched the blocks around our apartment and found several different food places of interest but ended up going into one called 'Takis'. This one gave us both the best vibe. There was a bouncer outside the front entrance, which was kind of odd, but he was a really nice guy.

The lighting inside the restaurant was darkly lit with a slight blue tint to it. It was packed inside, but we surprisingly didn't have to wait long. A waitress named Kaelie took us to a small booth next to the right wall of the room. She was absolutely gorgeous and looked somewhat elven. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I feel like she would definitely get casted as an elf in one of those movies with fantasy creatures in it.

"What are you gonna get Jon?"

"Ummm. I can't decide between the 'Triple Cheese Burger' or the 'Pizza from Hell'. What were you thinking?"

"I keep coming back to the 'Loaded Brisket Potato', so I'm probs gonna get that."

"I want a burger," said Jon, "but I wanna know why they think this pizza is from hell, so I think I'm going to get that."

I smiled at my brother. "I'll be right back I need to use the restroom. Will you order for me?" Jon nodded, so I left to find the bathroom.

**Jace's POV**

The sweet taste of Taki's chili cheese fries spread throughout my mouth. I swear, this place has to do something faerie like to their food to make it taste this good. Alec has been going on and on about some new fighting stance he'd mastered this morning, but I couldn't keep focused on him. My mind kept wandering back to Red and her brother. I wish I could just take out their problems so that they could live free without worries.

I look up from my fries, deep in thought about her red hair when I started hallucinating her in the middle of the room. She was wearing a different outfit than what she'd changed into earlier this morning, and she looked slightly less frightened. I shoved another bite of fries in my mouth and blinked hard, so she would fade away, but when I opened my eyes she was still there.

"Jace are you good?"

If she's here that means her brother is also here. This could be the perfect chance to talk to them and figure out some of the missing pieces to their story. "They're here."

Alec's expression went straight to his serious face real quick. "Who? The mundie siblings?"

"Yeah," by this point Red had walked passed our table and was almost into the bathroom, "right there." I pointed in her direction.

"Okay so should we talk to her on her way back?"

While I do want to talk to her more than I want these chili cheese fries, I feel like it's too soon. "No. She might get scared off sense this would be the second time seeing her today. I mean we are in a huge city so the odds of that are very low."

"You're not wrong. But it did happen naturally."

"Let's wait. We could follow them back to their apartment. Maybe something weird will happen and we can intervene."

Alec shrugged. "Your call."

**Clary's POV**

As I made my way back from the bathroom, I couldn't help but feel that familiar feeling of eyes being on me. I stopped in my tracks to look around for whoever it could be, silently willing it to be the golden god. Just as turned to the left a body smacked into me. I was almost knocked to the floor, but a set of hands kept me steady.

I looked up at the man who'd ran into me. His black hair was spiked up and lightly glittered. His eyebrows scrunched down as he took in all of my facial features.

"Joceyln?" He asked.

**Author Note:**

** Okay so I had intended on including info on the circle business with the demons and all that other stuff I mentioned in the last chapter, but it didn't happen. So instead of saying a specific chapter that it will be in, just know that info will be in one of the future chapters soon!**

** Jon and Clary got moved in smoothly and Jace's interest has been thoroughly peaked. I think you guys are really going to like the next chapter considering there will be more action and a certain redhead might run into a certain blonde god of a man…or they might not Lol. Come back to find out!**

** Thank you SO much for sticking around for chapter 2! I hope you guys come back for more and let me know what you think! For real though it means the world to hear what you guys have to say! I would also love to hear what y'all imagine happening in the future chapters! Happy Monday!**


	3. Broomstick

**Chapter 3: Creative Broomstick**

**_Jon's pov_**

***flashback to 11 year old Jon***

****_"Jon let me in the bathroom! Unlock the door!" Clary yelled, but I couldn't open the door. Not until I could figure out how to hide my tears._

_ I'm not one to cry. I'd say I've cried three times in my life. I guess it's just very hard to push me far enough to reach tears. When I was a little bit younger I'd thought there was something wrong with me for not crying. That there was something wrong with my emotions or something. No matter my pain level, I couldn't get the water works rolling._

_ But now, I can't seem to stop._

_ Father kept flashing through my mind. I had walked in on him about to punish Clary for something innocent. I always tried to take her punishments if I could. This time I interrupted him, but he acted like I wasn't there. After she'd taken two whips to the back I'd had enough. All I could feel was anger._

_ I pulled Clary out of his grip and hid her safely behind me. She was trying not to cry, but I could see the fear and pain in her eyes which made me even more angry. Father looked at me with curious eyes, almost like he was happy._

_ "I knew it," he said, "I knew they'd change if I got you angry."_

_ He was talking nonsense like usual, so I ignored him. "Don't you ever touch her again. I will take all of her punishments from now on."_

_ "No Jon don't do tha-"_

_Clary tried to stop me, but nothing would change my mind now. "Did you hear me pops? You lay a hand on her again and I'm going to get very upset."_

_ "Are you now, boy? You're just a puny kid. You've got nothing on me." He laughed as he flaunted his power._

_ "I warned you. Don't forget it." I turned around fast and dragged Clary out of the room. Something felt off. I-I felt off._

_ "Jon are you okay?" I heard her ask from behind me._

_ I ran to the bathroom and locked myself in here. My insides felt like they'd been turned upside down and my body felt on fire. Something was definitely wrong with me. I looked at my reflection in the mirror and almost screamed at what was looking back at me. My eyes were no longer their soft green color, but now they were dark black pits of nothing._

_ I closed them just as soon as I saw their blackness and threw water on my face, blinking hard again before looking in the mirror again. I began to wonder if I was crazy as my eyes were back to their normal color, no black left as evidence of what I'd thought I'd seen before._

_ The fear of my father being right, must have made me start seeing things. Tears began to fall down as relief spread through my body, mixing with the leftover fear and anger._

**Clary's POV**

"Joceyln?" He asked.

My mother's name. He just called me my mother's name. She must have known him long before falling into her depression. Back when she would actually leave the house. I stared long and hard at this stranger to make sure I didn't know him before speaking.

"Um no, that was my mother's name. Did you know her?" His eyes widened.

"I see. You have some similar facial features to hers," the man looked down at my hand and scrunched his eyebrows, "She's an old friend of mine. Are you here with her?"

This guy isn't giving me a bad vibe, so I guess that's good. "I came with my brother. We are new to this area in town."

"Well, welcome to my territory. I'm Magnus Bane."

"Clarissa Morgenstern. You can call me Clary if you want." I smiled at Magnus. He seemed like a kind man. "You wouldn't happen to know of any good places to work, would you?"

He hesitated for a second before a large smile spread across his face. "I know of a few."

**Jace's POV**

"Did I hear that right?" Alec asked. We'd finished our food soon after Red showed up and were keeping an eye on her and her brother now. They were sitting in a table not too far away from us just finishing their food.

"Yeah. Guess I was right about who their father was."

Alec ran his fingers through his hair, something he often did when thinking really hard. "We have to tell the Clave."

"No," I looked hard at Alec, "we can't tell them. Not yet at least. If we tell them, then we will be completely out of the loop."

"This could be really important Jace."

"Exactly. That's why we are going to monitor the situation closely on our own."

I looked back at the table the mundies had been at, but they were no longer there. I took a quick glance around the restaurant to find it empty of their presence.

"Come on they left." We hurried out the building, but they were nowhere to be seen. "Looks like they're gone. Wanna go home and train?"

Alec nodded. "I still think we should hand this over to the Clave."

"If it gets messy then we will."

**Clary's POV**

**1 and a half months later**

We have a big crowd at work tonight due to it being a Friday. Magnus had hooked Jon and I up with jobs at his club. Jon was one of the bartenders here most nights and I had been working as server for the VIP rooms. If there wasn't anybody in the VIP rooms than I just helped out at the bar cutting limes or cleaning up the dirty glasses.

It was really fun working here because of the life of the club. It's one of the hot spots in New York for wild crowds and celebrities right now. A lot of the people who rent out the VIP rooms are celebrities or very rich people willing to pay large amounts of money for private parties.

The only downside to my job was the constant attention from sleaze bags. My server uniform was a little revealing, which has been causing a lot of drunk assholes to come onto me. I've had to hold Jon back four times from trying to fight creepy drunk men.

"I need three margs on the rocks, two coronas and one Manhattan for VIP 4."

Jon nodded and began to mix up the margaritas. "Is that the Jones family again?"

"Yes."

"If that guy, what's his name again? Matthew? Nah Ma-Mark, right?"

"Uh yes." I said. Already knowing what Jon was going to say.

"If he gets handsy again I'm kicking him out. I hate that guy."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes at my over protective brother. A giggle escaped as I remembered what happened last time Mark Jones was here. "I'm sure he's too afraid to come onto me after what you did to him last time."

A smile formed on Jon's face. "He deserved it."

"I've never seen a grown man cry like that Jon." I laughed.

"And here's the Manhattan. Good luck sis."

I maneuvered the tray onto my shoulder and began the short walk to VIP room 4. Something felt off about the club. Not in a bad way or anything, but different. I shook off the feeling as I entered the room to meet a bunch of excited eyes ready to get tipsy.

**Jace's POV**

We had all applied our glamour runes along with silence, strength and agility. The institute had received word from the Clave that there would be several demons here tonight all holding information that we needed. None of us have been on a good hunt in a week or so, so this was definitely needed.

All three of us walked into the club, Pandemonium, eager to find our first victim. We had hunted here a few times before and were always busy rounding up demons. It's my favorite club in the city because it's mainly for the shadow world plus a human here and there. It's a place where shadowhunters, downworlders and mundies can all go to just have a good time.

The club was busy tonight. The dance floor was full of all kinds of people. The lights were flashing from blue to dark white light to neon aqua and the music was loud. I took a glance around the room and found where I'd go wait. Izzy and Alec split up as well so that we were all spread out around the room. We had tried sticking together before but splitting up has proved to be more effective in the long run.

Not much time passed before I saw Izzy moving in towards the middle of the dance floor. She must have her eyes on one of the targets. Alec and I locked eyes and moved into position 2. There was a storage room off to the side down a small hall where we usually lured in demons and finished our mission. Alec and I waited there as Izzy convinced the demon to join her for a fun time alone.

We waited in the closet for around fifteen minutes before a very excited demon walked in with Izzy. As soon as his eyes met mine and Alec's his energy turned from excited to on the edge real quick. The illusion of a boy with blue hair faded away and an ugly demon stood before us ready to pounce.

We got him corned and began the questioning. He wasn't much of a talker until Izzy brought out her whip and I worked on him with a seraph blade. Even then all we got out of him before sending him back to the demon realm was that "_We've almost got him back to normal_". No clue what that means.

We made it back to our original positions and started over looking for our next demon victim. It wasn't long before I spotted something interesting, but it wasn't a demon.

She was wearing tight black clothes that showed off her figure. Her shorts were way too short to be comfortable but were definitely hot and her top showed a little of her stomach and a good amount of cleavage for a girl with a smaller chest. I knew the mission was important, but I couldn't focus with her walking around looking that good.

I left my post and followed her with my eyes. She had a pattern to her job. Every time she would start at the bar, grab drinks and walk back to the hall into one of the rooms. I guess she must be a VIP server. Interesting.

**Clary's POV**

So far tonight had been pretty laid back. My VIP customers have all been somewhat respectful and nice so that's good. Mark Jones had left me alone which is a first. He won't even look me in the eyes. Guess Jon really messed him up.

"Hey Jon, could you make me a dirty martini and one old fashioned?"

"Someone reserved a VIP rom for them and just one other person?"

I nodded with my eyes a little wide. "Yeah. They must be high class."

"Golly that's got to cost a fortune. Here's your stuff."

"Thanks. Be back in a jiffy."

I walked the two drinks back to VIP room seven, but I was not prepared for the surprise I had when I met eyes with the person who rented the room out. My mind was racing with questions as I walked to him and set the drinks down on the table.

"Is your date not here yet?" I asked. Even though I've never met this man, it hurt to imagine some chick sitting in here with him.

"It's just me tonight," he paused, smirking at me. "That is unless you want a break from work for a second?"

H-he's inviting me to stay with him? "Oh, thank you, but I don't want to over step." As I was halfway out the door he spoke.

"Please, stay. I got this room hoping you would join me."

"Wait why?" I could feel butterflies form in the pit of my stomach as I looked hard into his golden eyes, wondering what was going on in his head.

He smirked, "Sit down and you might find out."

I could be fired. If I sit down and join him in his VIP room, Magnus will have every right to fire me. But for some reason I found my feet moving towards the golden god of a man and taking me to the seat across from him.

He wasn't dressed in something most men would wear to the club. His pants were black, and he had on a fitted black V-neck t-shirt. His hair was handing effortlessly around his face in very loose curls. He watched my every move as I sat down in the chair opposite him and took a few sips of the dirty martini he had ordered me. I've never drank on the job before. This is new.

My mind was flooded with questions, but my throat felt dry and I seemed to have lost the ability to form words. All I could do was just look at him, speechless.

"You look good in black," he said, breaking the silence. I could feel a small amount of heat rise into my cheeks.

"Thanks..um, so what did you want to talk about?"

He chuckled. "You looked bored, so I thought I'd give you a break from your job."

"Why me? There are a ton of other servers you could have picked." I wonder if he remembers me from the coffee shop back when Jon and I first moved here. I shook the thought away. He couldn't possibly remember me…I'm just ordinary Clary.

He looked back and forth between both of my eyes, building up the suspense for his answer. "I have a feeling you are different than the rest of the servers."

"I-I don't think so…I mean there's nothing really unique about me. I'm just another girl."

The golden man leaned towards me, taking a sip of his alcohol and gracefully setting it back down, keeping eye contact with me the whole time. "Now that right there is where I think you're wrong."

"I'm flattered…but how could you know that about me when you don't even know my first name?" I asked trying to find out was his name was too.

"I'm Jace. Jace Lightwood."

His name sounds familiar. I'm not sure where I've ever heard it before, but I know that I've heard that from someone. It's just such a distinct name I know I couldn't have heard it on accident.

"Nice to meet you Jace. I'm Clarissa Morgenstern, but you can call me Clary if you want." I gave him a smile but could sense something off as he heard my name.

"It's good to finally meet you Clary."

"What do you mean finally?" Could he, the golden god, actually remember me from that day so long ago?

"Well I-" he stopped speaking as a serious look formed on his face.

Goosebumps formed all over my body and all of the hairs on my arms stuck straight up. This always used to happen when dad claimed there were demons in our house. When I was younger I thought I could sense ghosts, but as I grew up I just started thinking it was random. From the look of Jace's face I knew something was wrong. Maybe my senses work a little after all.

"Jace what's wrong?" I asked.

He got up and walked gracefully to the door, listening to the noises coming from the hallway.

"Wait here I'll be right back," he said.

After about five minutes of waiting for him to come back I got bored and went out after him. Whatever it was couldn't be that bad or else there would be screaming coming from all of the people out there.

When I got out into the hallway everything looked and sounded normal. Jace was nowhere to be seen. I looked through the crowd out on the dance floor, but he wasn't out there, so I went back into the hallway. Maybe he went to the bathroom or maybe…wait. Why is the light on in the storage closet? There better not be a couple doing the nasty in there again. I do not wanna deal with that two nights in a row.

I sighed and took a deep breath in as I walked through the door and into the closet, shutting the door behind me. My eyes instantly widened at what I saw before me. I was expecting two drunk strangers, but instead I was left with three people doing what looked like torture to some innocent young girl.

Two of the people looked similar with dark hair and fair skin, and the third…oh god.

"Jace what the hell are you doing?" I grabbed the broom to my right, snapping it over my leg to create a weapon. Jace and the two dark headed people looked at me like I was crazy.

I ran over to the girl and stood in front of her. She was tied up, unable to defend herself. If there's anything I know in this situation, it's that being helpless sucks ass and I won't let that happen to her.

"Clary this is not what it looks like we were just-"

"Shut up Jace. She's a mundane," the other boy spoke, "what are we going to do with her now?"

"She's not a mundane Alec. You and I made sure of that several times."

I'm not sure what either of them are talking about but it sounds cryptic and lowkey crazy. The dark headed girl was looking at me like I was some kind of snack. Gosh this is not how I thought my night was going to pan out.

"Look, I have no clue what you two are talking about and frankly I don't care," I felt like running away and hiding, but I knew I needed to sound strong, "here's what's going to happen. You three are going to walk out that door right there. You are going to leave this club and never come back. Sound good?"

The dark headed boy looked at me like I was nothing and started walking toward me. "Why don't you put down that stick before you hurt yourself."

Just as he got a few feet away from me I struck him hard across the chest. I could tell from the blood on the end of my broom weapon, that I'd gotten him deep. I was just about to warn them all to leave for the second time when I heard whispering in my ear.

"You should have listened to the shadowhunters," the girl said.

Fear consumed my thoughts as I heard one of the words my father used to swear was real come out of a stranger's mouth.

_Shadowhunter._

"You see, I'm not some girl that needs protecting…but you are."

I turned toward the girl, ignoring the yelling coming from all three of the other people in the room. It was like my body was shutting their voices out, only focusing on the important thing in the room.

When the girl was fully in view I began to see her hair fade away into nothing. Her skin went from and olive color to a white color with grey splotches covering its body. It looked greasy and slimy in texture and was downright repulsive. I looked into its eyes, fear spreading throughout my veins. I felt the strong urge to freeze up and go into shock right now, but I know from my experience with father that freezing up is how you lose.

I guess my bastard father was right about something and in this moment I'm actually grateful for the training he forced on me and my brother for all of those years. When Jon and I ran away, we managed to pack two of dad's special daggers. He kept calling them some name that I can't remember, but he swore that they were the only way to kill demons.

Due to the hallucinations Jon and I have both experienced because of our father, we decided that one of the daggers would be his and one would be mine. Since we'd moved here we'd both kept our daggers on us at all time. I smiled now, knowing that I'm prepared for something I never imagined to be true.

"And why is that demon?" I asked, my smile turning sinister as surprise washed over the demon's face.

I didn't give it a chance to say anything else in case it tried attacking. With my dagger in my left hand and the makeshift broom stick weapon in my right I moved forward. Quicker than I thought I could, I rammed the broomstick through the things slimy white body, pinning the demon to the wall behind it. Shock filled its eyes.

"Any last words bitch?" I asked, pressing the dagger tightly against its throat.

It smiled, clearly aware of its defeat and said, "he taught you well dear Clarissa. Make sure to tell him I said hello."

With that I yanked the dagger across its throat and watched as it disappeared into nothing. I'm not completely sure what just happened, but I think it's dead. I wiped off my dagger and put it back safely in my boot and turned around to face the two strangers and Jace.

They were all looking at me like I was the crazy one. Jace was saying something to me but I still couldn't hear anything they were saying. The only thing I was positive about was that I needed to get out of this room before I passed out. I needed Jon.

So, I pushed my way through the three people, being small gave me the advantage. I ran down the hallway and straight to the bar.

"Jon, we need to leave right now."

"What's wrong?"

"No time for questions let's go. Magnus will understand." I pulled his hand hard and we ran out of the building. "Start the motorcycle Jon, they are probably close behind me."

"What do you mean? Who is after you?" All three of them burst out the door and started running straight towards us. "Oh shit." Jon hit the gas and we rode off into the night leaving the three shadowhunters behind.

**Author note:**

** All I gotta say is Clary is a badass. Like damn. Love you guys for following this story and hope you all enjoyed this little dose of action! There will be more to come and well I guess the story is just gonna pick up from here lol. This was a little bit longer than I'd planned on making it, but ya know sometimes I just get carried away. Lol but hope you guys come back for chapter 4 because that would mean the world to me. HAPPY LATE SUNDAY TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT.**


	4. Truth

**Chapter 4: Truth Prevails**

**Jace's POV**

"What now? We can't just let two mundanes walk around after she just saw all of that," Alec said.

We were walking down the street trying to decide what to do. Izzy's mad because we both left her out of this for so long, but she'll get over it after she's done throwing her fit.

"They aren't mundanes Alec. But I know." My only idea of what to do was going to cross a lot of Clary and her brother's boundaries, but it's the best I've got. I started walking north, towards their apartment.

"Where are we going?" Izzy asked.

"Just follow me."

Within the next twenty minutes we were standing outside of their apartment and my siblings were looking at me like I was crazy.

"Is this where they live?" Izzy asked.

"Yep. Come on."

"Jace when were you going to tell us you've been stalking mundanes in your free time?" Alec asked. "I thought you were just really hitting it off with the ladies."

"It wasn't important until now. And I always am Alec."

We walked into the building still fully glamoured. I've always hated elevators. They are a beauty for the lazy, but the ride is just so boring. I'd rather just take the stairs.

Soon we were standing in front of the familiar door belonging to apartment #687. It didn't sound like anyone was in there yet, which was odd. I bent down and drew an opening rune over the locked door handle, and we all walked inside.

"Looks like we beat them here, which doesn't make sense because they were on a motorcycle," Alec said.

"The red head is probably telling that boy everything that she saw," Izzy said.

I walked through the living room to a small hallway with two doors. The doors belonged to two bedrooms next to each other. One room had blue bedding and the other had purple, so I'm guessing the purple room is Clary's.

She didn't have much up on the walls aside from a couple drawings here and there. One of them caught my eye. It was hanging over her nightstand. The drawing was of a coffee shop…and me. I guess I made an impression on her that day in that shop. She'd drawn beams of light surrounding me, and wings coming out of my back. I couldn't believe how accurate she'd gotten my facial features after only seeing me once. Amazing.

I left her room to find a third bedroom that was full of…weapons. There was a rack off to the left containing a pretty large variety of weapons, but none of them were shadowhunter made. They were all mundane knives and rods. Interesting. On the right side of the room, there was a stack of dumbbells and other types of work out equipment. They are either very enthusiastic about their fitness or I'm missing something.

Confusion spread through me as I tried to figure out why two teenagers on the run would be this invested in weapons. I understand needing to be able to protect yourself, but this was just excessive for a normal human. They couldn't really need all of this to protect themselves from their father…could they? Unless he really is Valentine.

Just as I reentered the living room, the front door flung open and Clary and Jon came through.

"What tha," Jon said as he pulled a dagger out of the side of his pants. Clary pulled out the same double edged dagger she'd used against the Eidolon demon earlier tonight. It had a red jewel shaped like a rose on the hilt and Jon's slightly longer dagger had blue jewels on its hilt. They must be a set. Though they didn't look related physically, Clary's fighting stance closely resembled Jon's.

"How did you get in our apartment?" Clary asked, pausing as her eyebrows scrunched in confusion, "Hell, how did you even know where we lived?"

Izzy stepped slightly toward the siblings, her hands out in a form of submission, cautious with her distance. "Please, we come in peace. My name is Isabelle, but I like people to call me Izzy. What are your names?"

The siblings exchanged glances with each other. I could feel the tension in the air.

"I'm Jonathan. This is my little sister Clarissa."

Izzy was always better at calming people down than Alec or I. "I wish we could be meeting in a slightly less invasive way, but we need to speak to you both."

I had been watching from a spot at the end of their small hallway so that nobody knew I was back in the living room yet. The floor creaked as I moved into view. "Clary, I know what you may be thinking, but please hear us out."

"Hear you out? After I saw all three of you torturing an innocent girl in the storage closet? I don't think so." She sounded fearful yet held a strength in her voice.

"That was no girl," Alec said, leaning up against the back wall of the room.

She didn't have to say anything for me to know what she was thinking. _'If that wasn't a girl than what was it?'_

"It was a demon." As soon as the word demon left my lips the two siblings seemed to tense even further, more than I thought possible in our situation. Jonathan looked down at his sister, a questioning look fell over his eyes. They weren't saying anything to each other, but were talking with their eyes

"Did you say demon?" Jonathan asked.

I nodded in response and watched as the two took in the information. "How can we know if you are telling the truth?" I hadn't noticed until she spoke this time, but her arm was bleeding, dripping off the tips of her fingers and onto the wooden floor.

"You're hurt." Without thinking I moved to her side, grabbing her hand and laying it in mine. Her brother pointed his blade at me, but I ignored him. "When did this happen?"

I know I don't know Clary well at all. I only know a handful of things about her, and I didn't even have the chance to learn them from her mouth. Instead I'd spent the past few weeks digging and digging for information on her and her brother. I did come out of that with a good amount of intel, but also with something I hadn't expected. Curiosity.

She yanked her hand safely to the side of her body, her eyes locked in mine. "Let me help you. If anything goes wrong your dear old brother can drive that kindjal through my heart. I promise." She scrunched her eyebrows in thought and glanced at her brother for some sort of approval. He nodded, and her hand made its way back onto mine.

There was a nicely sized gash going crooked up her forearm. A memory from earlier tonight flashed through my mind and I could see her next to that demon. With the broomstick already through its body and her kindjal across its neck, the bloody thing ran it's hand down her arm, leaving this gash as her souvenir.

I ran my finger over the skin by the wound. She shivered from my touch, but I couldn't decide if it was due to the pain or something else. "Are you left handed?" "No. Why does tha-"

"And you've never been marked with one of these?" I used my free hand to point at my voyance rune. She shook her head no again.

"Jace. You better not be thinking of doing what I think you're thinking of doing." Alec always does have to follow the rules. He moved closer to us to take a look at the gash himself. "You can't give her her first rune. That duty belongs to the silent brothers and you know it."

"I'm not going to mark her. It doesn't hurt to ask though."

**Clary's POV**

"Come here," Jace pulled me into our kitchen and to the sink. "Do you have any rubbing alcohol anywhere? Some bandages maybe?"

"Yeah hold on." Jon walked back through the hallway, dagger still in hand. He was back in a couple seconds with our first aid kit. "I'm going to go try to figure some of this out with Izzy and that brown haired guy."

Just as Jon was halfway out of the kitchen he leaned back in, glaring straight at Jace. "If you lay a hand on my sister I'll gut you."

I turned to find Jace's golden eyes looking at me. I'd never seen eyes the color of his before. They were a shade of brown/hazel that resembled gold. The silence was thick as Jace pulled me closer to begin working on my arm. He washed most of the dried blood away in our sink and I knew the painful part was next.

"Here bite down on this." He handed me a folded up hand towel, which I gladly accepted and shoved in my mouth. "Don't worry. I'll be quick."

Burning, stinging shocks throbbed all along my wound and I bit down hard on my towel. Jace finished me off with a large bandage and took the hand towel back from me.

I wanted to say something to him, but I'm still not sure whether he's the enemy or someone on the good side. He's been nothing but nice since I've known him these past few hours, but I don't think I'm crazy to have trouble trusting him after what I'd seen earlier tonight.

"I'm sorry you ended up in that closet tonight. It's not what was meant to happen."

I looked down at my feet trying to conjure up something to say to him. "What was meant to happen?"

The corner of his lips raised upwards. "You and I were meant to have a nice romantic hour in that VIP room."

"Oh really? And what were we supposed to be doing in that VIP room Jace?"

"Playing chess of course. What else would we be doing Clarissa?"

I tried to push back the smile that was forming on my face but failed. Instead I started to back up to retreat to the living room, but my clumsy self was not going to let that happen.

As I moved towards the living room, my right foot slipped out from under me. On my way down to the hard, cold ground two hands caught me. In a split second I went from being the victim of gravity to being pulled into Jace, my back against his chest. His heart beat matched my speeding beat, which was comforting to know that I wasn't the only one feeling something right now.

His hands moved to turn me around to face him, so I went with their motion placing both of my hands on his chest.

"Thank you," my voice came out quieter than I'd meant for it to.

He raised his left hand to my face and pushed a few wild curls behind my ear. "You're welcome."

"Jace, are you two done in there yet?" Izzy yelled from the living room.

He shook his head, eyes unmoving from mine. "Not yet," he said quietly to me, then louder, "Coming Iz."

Jace removed his hands from my body and walked away into the living room. A strange feeling of emptiness flowed through me as he got further and further away. I shook the feeling away and followed after him.

Jace and the Izzy sat next to each other on our couch, while the other boy leaned against the wall across from the front door. The dark haired boy finally told us his name while Jon grabbed our dining chairs for us to sit in. His name was Alec.

"We know you two have some knowledge of our world, but think you need to be filled in a little."

"By 'your world' are you referring to the shadow world?" Jon asked.

**Jace's POV**

I nodded and leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. "I'm just going to be very blunt here. We are shadowhunters. We dedicate our lives to kill demons and keep humans safe. And I think you two were born shadowhunters but kept in the dark for some reason. Have you heard any of this before?" Both of them seemed to grow paler, tense.

"I-it's actually real?" Jon asked. I nodded and let him take the floor. "Our father used to talk nonsense, well we thought it was nonsense, but he used to ramble on and on about the shadow world. Clary and I were convinced he was insane. How is this possible?"

I started by telling them a brief history of shadowhunters, how we were made and some of our basic abilities.

"I'm not trying to cross any sensitive lines here, but why didn't you believe your father?" He was telling the truth after all.

Jonathan shifted in his chair, uncomfortable. Without hesitation, Clary put her hand in his and squeezed a couple times.

"Our father was abusive. He has always been a little not there in the head. Even my earliest memory of him is a little off. It's kind of hard to explain unless you've interacted with him yourself. For example, he used to talk about the trips he'd taken to the moon and how he was there to sign the declaration of independence back in 1776." Clary paused, biting her lip in thought. "When he started talking about a world with demons and werewolves it was just natural for all of us to associate that with his mental issues."

"I see. So, if neither of you believed him, why can you both use weapons like you've been trained for this life?"

This time Jon spoke. "That's because we were trained for this life, although training was forced. Valentine was a shitty father, but he did want us to be able to protect ourselves from what we thought were imaginary demons. I guess they're real."

"I know Jace mentioned the institute briefly a second ago, but please know our door is always open to both of you." Izzy reached out, placing her hand on Clary's knee. "I'm sure that this is all of lot of information that you guys need to process, so if you both want we can continue this tomorrow?" She asked.

"Yeah I think that would be good," Clary said.

As we all started moving towards the door I pulled Clary aside. "Look, I'm sorry for how this all went down. This isn't how I wanted it to go."

She was looking up at me with her big green eyes. The second she put her hand on my shoulder a thousand tiny sparks sent through my body to my gut. "I'm sorry I tried to kill you with a twenty year old broomstick."

I shook my head, chuckling at the memory of her armed with a broomstick. "If you ever want to try again let me know and we can set up a time."

Her eyebrows shot up and an angelic smile appeared on her face. "You want me to try and kill you with a broomstick? Weird flex but okay."

Her laugh hit my ears and I had to keep myself from pulling her into me and kissing her right there. I'm not sure why I feel this way about her, but I'm damn ready to find out.

**Clary's POV**

"I'm freaking out on the inside, but I feel calm at the same time. What are you thinking Jon?"

We just said bye to the Lightwood siblings and had been sitting on our couch in silence for the past ten minutes.

"I'm pissed that our psycho father was right. You think mom knew?"

I tried to imagine my mother living in the shadow world but couldn't. "She never seemed like someone who'd fit in with this world. I feel like she didn't know anything about it."

"Yeah. She has always been pretty ordinary," Jon rubbed his eyes, stress radiated off him, "I'm just confused at how we never noticed. If we have the 'sight' or whatever they call it, then why could we never see any of the demons dad was always talking to?"

"I don't know Jon, but I'm honestly grateful that we didn't see them. I probably would have shut down if we had found out that way."

Jon turned his body towards mine and picked up my hands. He and I have always had a bond greater than I think most siblings have. Instead of fighting with each other like normal brothers and sisters, we grew up protecting each other. He was the only person I could confide in. The person whose shoulder I cried on. He knew me better than I know myself. If I know anything about this shadow world, it's that I don't want to live in it without Jon by my side.

"Clare, with all of dad's horror stories coming to life, I just…I can't lose you. You're all that I have." I looked my brother hard in the eyes and squeezed his hands in mine. "I have no clue what's going to happen after tomorrow when we go to that institute, but whatever it is please stay near me. I don't fully trust those Lightwood kids yet."

I gave my brother a soft smile. "Anything for you Jonny. I love you."

"Love you too."

**Author Note:**

** Not much went down in chapter 4, but don't worry chapter 5 will make up for it. Romances will start heating up and evil is a brewing. Thanks for reading this chapter you are all the BEST. Can't wait to have you all back for chapter 5! Happy Wednesday afternoon my dudes.**


	5. Trust

**Chapter 5: Trust No One**

**_Jocelyn's POV_**

**_*flashback to 15 years ago*_**

_I remember a time when I would look into my lover's eyes and see nothing but light. Now…now Valentine scares me more than the demons we dedicate our lives to killing. I barely even recognize him anymore. The man I loved, the man I married, the man I had two children with…he's gone._

_ As I sit in our manor, staring at the book collection we inherited from our parents, the only clear thought I have is 'run'. But how can I run? My three year old and two year old kids are too young to understand what is going on. My parents are under Valentine's spell, like everyone else who thinks that he is a gift to the shadowhunter world. But they don't see the man he becomes behind closed doors. They don't know the true meanings behind the plans he has so 'kindly' shared with them. They don't see what he's made me become._

_ Nobody could ever understand._

_ It wasn't long after we'd been married before things started to get weird. I began to have problems with my memory. At the end of every day I noticed that I was missing a couple hours. I would look back and not remember what happened for two hours in the morning or for thirty minutes after dinner. There was no pattern to the memory losses, other than they were happening every day._

_ I remember the moment I realized I needed help..that the memory problems had gone on for too long. So, I told Valentine that I was going to run errands and instead saw a warlock. He told me many things were wrong in my life, but the biggest problem was that something had entered my household and was interfering with my mind._

_ I left that meeting more confused than before and continued on with my life trying to understand. More time passed, and the memory problems worsened. The longest period of blackout time I had was two months long. When I came out of it my husband told me I was pregnant with our second child. _

_ It was then that I started journaling, but not in a way that anyone could understand. No, I started drawing out coded messages for myself that only I would be able to decipher. Over time I realized that I'd left myself messages during the times I was blacked out. These drawings are what opened my eyes to what was truly going on in my house, in my family._

_ During my longest black out, I left myself a message that would alter my life forever. It was Valentine's true plans laid out for me to see, but the worst part was the warning I'd left myself._

_ The warning was this: "You think you are against Valentine, but you're wrong. In the times you think you've lost, you are actually becoming your true self. Queen of demons."_

**Clary's POV**

"Let's go little sis." Jon yelled from the living room. I looked at my reflection in the mirror for the tenth time in the past five minutes. Inspired by the Lightwood siblings' attire, I was wearing all black.

"Coming!" I pinned back the stray curls that are always wild and ran to the front door. Jon was standing against the wall impatient and also wearing all black. For as long as I can remember, Jon has always worn at least one black item in every one of his outfits.

"There you are. I was beginning to think you were having cold feet or something."

"You know I'm just as intrigued by the Lightwood siblings as you are. I was just fixing my hair."

"For the blonde one?" He asked, squinting at me with his protective brother eyes.

The thought of Jace made me excited. "No, Jon. I just didn't want to look like the female version of Tarzan."

Before the Lightwood siblings left late last night, Izzy scribbled down the address to their institute. As my brother and I reached the address written on the crumpled piece of paper, I began to wonder if she'd written down the wrong address on accident.

"This can't be the right place." Jon said, doing a small spin to see if there were any buildings around here that might resemble whatever an 'institute' is supposed to look like.

The building in front of use looked decades old, and like it had been abandoned for a long time. There was a tall chain linked fence with holes here and there circling the lot. I looked down at the paper to make sure we were at the right place, and we were. Why would they take us to some broken down church in the middle of the Manhattan? This doesn't make any sense. Unless…

"Jonathan. Do you think this could be one of those thingies they were talking about?"

"Thingies?"

"Yeah you know that thing…I can't remember what they called it, but they said it was keeping us from seeing things sometimes."

"Oh yeah. I think it was called a glamour," Jon looked back at the building and cocked his head to the side, "so what? we just need to think extra hard or maybe we have to get closer to it?"

"No clue. Let's try that." I crumpled the paper back up and shoved it in the front pocket of my jeans.

Jon walked ahead, opening one of the holes in the dinky old fence and holding it open for me. I shimmied through and followed him up to the front of the building. I watched as Jon tried to open one of the front doors. They didn't budge a bit. He placed his hand on the front door. He closed his eyes, trying to break the glamour I guess, but nothing happened.

I studied the doors to see if there were any weak spots we could mess with to get them open. There wasn't much we could use to our advantage, but there was something odd on one of the doors. There was a symbol burned into top right corner of the front door.

"Jon look."

His eyes followed where my hand was pointing. I watched as he focused on the symbol and a small amount of familiarity came over him. "Why do I feel like I've seen that before?" He asked.

Just as I was about to answer, someone spoke from behind us.

"That's because you probably have." Jace stood behind us leaning against one of the old pillars in front of the cathedral, his arms crossed over his chest. "You two came earlier than we expected."

My brother's arm flew out in front of me, similar to how a mother's arm swings out over her child when braking aggressively in the car. Jace had startled both of us, but after we realized it was him my brother relaxed, and I couldn't help but feel nervous.

A good nervous.

"Why did you bring us to this crappy warehouse?" Jon asked.

Jace smiled as he walked closer to us. "Lesson one. When something is glamoured you have to focus past whatever you're seeing. Look at the building again, but this time calm your thoughts and strip the warehouse away piece by piece."

I looked at my brother before attempting to follow Jace's instructions. I thought he was just messing with us for a second, but then something amazing happened. The front doors faded into nothing, the floor following soon after and suddenly I was seeing a different picture before me.

We were standing inside the building; the front corridor was huge. My brother seemed to be unraveling everything at the same time as I was.

"Congrats. You are both beginner shadowhunters now." Jace walked past us, "Follow me."

As we followed Jace through various hallways, something caught my eye. It was small, fluffy and grey. I walked off not thinking about getting lost, curious at what the fluffy grey thing could be.

As it came fully into my view, I realized it was a small, yet very fat cat. He had grey fur, an extremely fluffy tail and bright yellow eyes. As soon as he noticed me he stood up and walked to my feet. I'd always had a special place in my heart for cats.

The little guy did figure eights between my legs, rubbing his head all over my shins. I bent down and scratched behind his ears.

"Hi there little fluff ball. I seem to have gotten myself lost. You wouldn't happen to know where everyone went would you?" The cute little cat cocked his head at me, meowed and started to walk down the hallway. You could call me crazy, but I think he's taking me where I need to be.

Ten minutes and a lot of creepy hallways later, I was standing outside of a large doorway. The cat meowed at me and I thanked him with a generous rub on the head. I could hear several voices coming from the room on the other side and was almost positive that one of them belonged to a concerned brother of mine.

I picked up the little fluff ball and entered the room. All of the voices stopped talking and placed their attention on me. Amazement filled me as I marveled at one of the largest libraries I'd ever seen. There were so many books in here it would probably take my whole life to even make a dent in reading them. All of the Lightwood siblings were staring at me, my concerned brother was to their left next to an older man with darkish, almost greying hair.

"Sorry I'm late I got distracted." I scratched the little fluff ball's cheek and walked closer to the group.

Alec looked at me obviously confused, but I wasn't sure why. "How are you holding that cat right now?"

"Yeah, Clary he doesn't let anybody hold him." Izzy said.

I shrugged at all of the surprised faces looking back at me. "I don't know he must just like me I guess."

"You must be Clarissa," the old man looked at me curiously, almost holding a look a familiarity in his eyes, "come join us."

"Call me Clary. You are?"

"Hodge Starkweather. You look just like your mother Clary."

I always thought my looks were so far below my mother's beauty. "You knew her?"

"Yes. I was close friends with both of your parents when we all lived in Idris."

"Idris?" Jon asked.

Hodge told us all about the main home for shadowhunters, for us. From the way he talked about it, it sounded like one of the most beautiful and serene places on earth. I hoped I could go visit it at some point in my life. He went over what the lives of the Nephilium were like and explained the Clave and downworlders to us.

The more my brother and I learned of our people, the more I began to wonder why this life was kept secret for both of us. I was tempted to ask Hodge if he had any idea why my parents have "lost all of the memories" of their lives as shadowhunters, but something in my gut is keeping me from mentioning it.

"Your father was one of my best friends before he disappeared along with your mother and both of you."

Jon looked over at me just as I turned to look at him. This man doesn't seem vile enough to be best friends with a man like our father. I'm not sure if that's a good sign or if this man is more dangerous than he seems.

"What do you mean disappeared?" Jon asked.

Hodge shifted, uncomfortable. "Valentine was in charge of a new movement that wasn't widely accepted by shadowhunters."

"Does this have something to do with a Circle?" I asked, the memory of the night we ran passed through my head.

Hodge nodded. "What do you know of it?" The Lightwood siblings had all sat off to the side. Each of them stayed silent as we spoke with Hodge.

Jonathan explained how our father had gone crazy at some point and how he talked of things from the shadow world, but none of it ever made any sense. I could tell that he didn't really trust this Hodge guy either because of the details he was leaving out. Jon didn't mention the demon that told father the Circle was reforming, only that father had talked about circles often.

"I see. Well, the Circle was your father's movement. He created it when we were teenagers, and being as admired as your father was, the movement had been supported for a while. As we got older and became adults, Valentine changed. Not many people knew why your father changed, but he sure did become a totally different person. His movement also changed, but he would only tell a few select members of the Circle's new objectives."

Hodge searched our eyes for any sign of recognition of the things he was telling us about. I guess he doesn't trust us either. "So, what happened with the Circle? You speak of it like it was something bad."

"It was. You see, the last time anyone saw your parents was after they slaughtered almost every shadowhunter that went against them at the signing of the Ninth accords. We call it the uprising."

"They just walked in and killed a bunch of people?" Jon asked, the disbelief clear in his voice.

"They entered the signing with less than ten shadowhunters to back them up. The rest of the shadowhunters and all of the downworlders in the room fought against them." Hodge paused, like he was remembering something painful. "The odd part was that as your parents passed through the room, the downworlders suddenly began to switch sides. It was like your parent's presence compelled the downworlders to join them."

"Like a vampire's subjugate?" Jace asked. Interesting that it's the first time he was learning of this like Jon and I.

"I'm not sure why, but they did act like subjugates to Valentine and Jocelyn. The point is, that your parents figured something out. Whatever their new objectives were or are for the Circle is way beyond what shadowhunters have ever seen in our history. If I knew better, I'd say they were dabbling in some sort of dark magic or ancient dark runes."

"So, you're telling me that my parents can somehow control downworlders? What does that even mean?" I asked, crossing my arms as I tried to imagine my sweet mother murdering hundreds of innocent people. That can't be right.

"Nobody ever got a chance to figure it out or question them. That same night they took both of you and disappeared without a trace. Many people were questioned under the mortal sword. None of their close friends or your family had any clue where you all went."

"Our family?" Jon looked at me wide eyed. Our mother had always told us that we had no other family.

"Yes, both sets of your grandparents live in Idris."

My hands found their way to my hair as I tried to process the fact that I had grandparents that were alive, and that my own parents were murderers. Jon looked paler than usual, also as shocked as I was.

We spent the next few hours talking to Hodge about our parents and what life is like in Idris. Sadly, we both had shifts tonight at the club, so we had to wrap our talk up and head out earlier than either of us wanted. Before we left, we set up a time to come back tomorrow to begin training with the Lightwoods and learn about possibly getting our first runes soon.

We were already a couple blocks away from the institute and so far, had been walking in silence.

"Clary, what's that?" Jon pointed to the alley on my right. I looked where he was gesturing but didn't see much of anything other than a dark shady area with a few dumpsters. The smell of rotting trash surrounded the alley, probably from somewhere near the dumpsters. A bad feeling formed in my gut as my brother walked further into the alley.

"Jon," I said as I followed cautiously after him, "I don't think this is a good ide-"

I screamed as loud as I could as my mind began to see through the glamour before me. There were two ugly maggot looking demons cornering my brother against a building behind him. Without thinking I pulled my knife out of my boot and threw it as hard as I could. It sunk into the head of the demon to the right of my brother, leaving one left to kill.

"Don't rid of me yet human. I have a message for you." The thing spoke, its long black teeth making me slightly nauseous.

Jon moved quickly on his feet, pinning the demon to the ground with his blade. "Better get it out fast demon. I'm not known for having good patience."

"You sound just like your father."

Jon tightened his dagger to the demon's throat. He was practically fuming with anger after that thing just compared him to our shit father.

"You have three seconds. Three. Two. On-"

"Okay okay. Whether you realize it yet or not, you are just like your father and your mother. In time you will wise up and join the winning side. Many shadowhunters aligned with the Clave are blind to what they're actually following."

"Is that all?" Jon spoke.

The nasty thing looked him deep in the eyes and I could be wrong, but I think it smiled at him. "They can't be trusted."

"Who can't be trusted?" I yelled but received a mix of laughter and coughing in response.

Jon ripped through the demon with his blade, cutting him off from laughing anymore. He rose up and met my eyes. I knew exactly what he was thinking just by the look on his face.

_Well shit._

**Author Note:**

** Okay we finally got to hear some about the circle! I have some good plans for what Valentine is going to do with it! So, Valentine and Jocelyn can control downworlders somehow? Interesting. Very interesting. You'll find out in either chapter 6 or chapter 7 how they are controlling downworlders!**

** Thank you guys for reading and have the BEST late Wednesday ever broskis.**


	6. Balance

**Chapter 6: Balance**

**_Jocelyn's POV_**

_*flashback to 13 ish years ago*_

_ "Come here little ones! Mommy made chocolate smoothies!"_

_ The sound of my children running grew louder and louder until they were right in front of my eyes jumping up and down. All I can think is that I hope that this works. If it doesn't do anything I don't know what options, I'll have left with them._

_ My little Jonathan looked up at me, his eyes a cloudy black color. No trace of his beautiful green iris' left for me to see. The pain in my heart spread throughout my body, but my smile didn't falter._

_ "Here you go handsome boy. A chocolate smoothie just for you."_

_ He took the smoothie and quickly started drinking, the excitement clear on his face despite the lack of emotion in the dark pits of his eyes._

_ "Mommy! Mommy! Me!" To my right my daughter was impatiently begging for her smoothie. I reached behind me grabbing the drink and silently thanking the Angel that she wasn't as far gone as her older brother. One smoothie was left to give on the counter._

_ "Here you go princess. Don't drink too fast or you will get a brain freeze."_

_ I stood back and watched as my two young children played together as they finished off their drinks. Angel, I hope you weren't lying to me and that these do the trick._

**_One week later._**

_ The morning light peaked through the curtains into my bedroom. I glanced to my right looking for Valentine, but he was already gone, probably working in the basement. Hopefully he won't be as cranky today as he has been recently._

_ I threw on some clothes for the day, making sure to take my supplement before making my children their morning smoothies. It had been a week since I'd started them on the stuff and I had already noticed slight differences in the way they acted. My daughter was finally showing emotions again and the green had returned to my son's eyes. Hope filled me once again._

**Clary's POV**

I ran both of my hands through my hair trying to comprehend what just happened. Two demons were following us sent by…by my father? Jonathan was in the middle of wiping what was left of the demon off of his dagger when he spoke exactly what I was thinking.

"We can't tell anyone," he said.

I looked at him and nodded. While I feel like we might be able to trust the Lightwoods, this information is too delicate to share with anyone but ourselves until we understand what is actually going on.

"You don't think that father is actually ordering those things to deliver messages to us, do you?" I asked. I wish I could be disappointed in father, but I truly wouldn't be surprised if he was working with demons at this point.

"I think father does a lot of things that I don't understand. Wouldn't put it past him to be buddy-buddy with a pack of demons or two."

We had arrived at the institute and were led to the training room by my favorite grey puff ball. Nobody was in there when we showed up, which was expected since we came a little earlier than we'd originally said.

"How about a little warm up fight brother?" I smiled at him ready to have a weapon in my hands. It had been too long since we'd trained together in a space this large. I didn't realize before how much I actually like doing this.

He chuckled at me, "That eager to lose sister?"

There was a rack in the corner of the large room holding a large variety of weapons. We had a collection similar to this one back home with father, but none of them were this nice looking. Overall the training room here had more than we've ever had plus it was a lot larger than what either Jon and I were used to. There were mats off to the side for softer landing I assume, and there were beams scattered above us. The beams when up for what looked like two stories above us.

"Wanna fight on one of those Clary?" Jon pointed up towards the beams, a playful look in his eyes.

My vivid imagination pictured me falling down and breaking both of my legs, but even that worry wouldn't hold me back from beating my brother. Besides, if I were to ask Jon to stay on the ground that would make me look weak, which is something father had ingrained in our minds never to become.

"How far up are you thinking?"

His eyes squinted together, and his lips pursed out as he thought over his options. "How about we go up four beams and then fight there?"

I was surprised he picked one so high up, but knew he only did that to try and make me more nervous. "Sounds lovely," I said as I grabbed a weapon and jumped to the lowest beam, making my way up to the fourth.

It wasn't long before Jon joined me on the beam. I studied his weapon, taking in all of the weak points I could find. He had chosen a stave, while I had chosen a lance. Both were similar weapons in the fact that they were long and pole like, easier to reach your opponent.

"Nice of you to finally join me Jon."

"Ha. Ha. I was just giving you the time you needed to adjust."

I glared at him and moved into my fighting stance. The tricky part about fighting with Jon was that we were both trained by the same man, meaning we have similar fighting styles. We also grew up fighting and learning together so both of us are very familiar with how the other works.

I knew Jon wasn't going to strike first, so I made my move. He blocked me and kicked out with one foot trying to catch me off guard. I jumped up and flipped backwards avoiding his kick. My landing was a little unbalanced, but I quickly regained my footing and moved forward. I didn't take too much time before squatting down and spinning around as fast as I could, trying to knock Jon in the shins with my lance. He ran forward, jumping over me and turning around to strike just as he landed.

I was mid spin when I realized he was going to strike, so the only option I had to avoid getting hit was to jump down to the next beam closer to the floor. Right as I landed Jon joined me and we both ran at each other striking and blocking over and over again. About fifteen minutes passed before a presence entered the room. I was mid flip looking down at Jon, the point of his stave was an inch from my eyes, when a voice called out to us.

"Ah started without me I see?" I landed on the other side of Jon and we both looked down to watch as Jace jumped up on the beam to join us. He was holding a metal rod in his left hand. "Don't mind if I join do you?" He aimed the question towards both of us but was looking into at me the whole time.

"The more the merrier," Jon said as we all began to fight again.

The next half hour consisted of a lot of close calls for all of us, but nobody had actually come close to beating the other two. I'd say we are all pretty similar in our level of fighting skill, which must be a shock to Jace considering we were supposed to be coming here to learn from him.

"I gotta take a leak. I'll be back in a few." Jon jumped off the beams and jogged out of the room leaving Jace and I alone to spar.

I tried to strike his right side with my lance, but he dodged it like it was nothing, swinging his weapon right into mine. My grip on the lance faltered and I dropped my weapon. The corner of his lips turned up in a small smirk as he walked closer to me.

"No weapon Clarissa. Can't have that," he threw his metal weapon to the ground, "let's make this a fair fight."

I chuckled and got into position. "You didn't have to do that Jace," I said as I dodged a blow from the left. I kicked out hoping he would jump up, and he did. As he was in the air I threw a punch straight to his gut.

He landed gracefully, coming at me quick with a blow to the side. The hit took me off guard, causing me to lose my balance. We locked eyes just as my right foot slipped off the side of the beam. Jace reached out just in time to grab my hand. I hung there soaking in my defeat as he smirked down at me.

"So, are you gonna keep me hanging here or are you gonna pull me up anytime soon?"

Jace chuckled as he began to pull me up. Right as my feet were back on the beam we both lost our balance. Jace fell backward pulling me down on top of him, still on the beam. His right hand was on my lower back and his left hand was on my upper back. My curls were falling down, a few of them grazing his face.

This is the closest I've ever been to him, to his face. His eyes were the most beautiful shade of gold I'd ever seen, and they were locked in mine. I could feel his heart beat against my skin, rapid like my own. He moved his left hand away from my back and used it to put some of my stray curls behind my ears. I should be scared or at least nervous that we might fall, but I feel safe in his arms.

"Thanks for not letting me fall."

He smirked again, "You mean for saving your life?"

"For all you know maybe I wanted to fall."

His eyebrows shot up and he shook his head a little. "Have you ever trained on beams before?"

"No."

"Well then I think you and your brother aren't going to need as much combat training as I was expecting."

"Yeah you're right we did basically kick your ass," I said.

"I'm just gonna let you think your hot shit."

"You don't think so?"

He was silent for a second as he took in my question before whispering, "I think so." The look in his eyes grew more intense, almost darker. He reached his hand back up, tangling his fingers in my hair and slowly bringing my face closer to his.

"Clary are yawl still up there?" My brother asked, and he barged into the training room.

Without thinking I jumped up, flipping over Jace and landing on my back, my head a couple inches away from his. I leaned over the edge of the beam and looked down at my brother. "Hey yeah we ditched the weapons a little after you left and have been doing hand on hand combat."

"You better not have roughed up my sister Jace or I'll beat the shit out of you."

Jace peaked over the side of the beam and yelled back, "You have nothing to worry about Jon. She was in good hands during your absence." Jace sat up with his legs dangling off the edge of the beam and looked over at me. He winked, then jumped down until he reached the ground.

What the heck just happened? I wondered as I jumped down after Jace to join him and my brother on the floor for more training.

**Same day, 5 hours later**

**Clary's POV **

Jon and I had barely had enough time to shower and get ready before we had to speed over to work for the night. We'd gotten to the club about fifteen minutes late, and it was already full of people ready to have a good time. Jon went straight to the bar and started taking orders with one of the other bartenders on shift tonight. I was tying on my small apron when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I turned to meet the eyes of a tall man, probably about the same age as my parents. He had brown hair and blue eyes that were fixed into an expression of confusion.

"May I help you sir?" I asked, weirded out by his body language.

He shook his head and began to back away, "No. No, I'm sorry I thought you were someone else."

The man vanished into the crowd behind him before I could respond. That was very odd. Usually the men here bother me through sexual harassment, not whatever that was.

I shook the encounter off and ran to my first VIP room of the night. My first three rooms were full of very rich families out for a good night, but my fourth VIP room was different.

As I entered the room I glanced around to see five men scattered around. Two were playing pool near the back side of the room and two other men were chatting in the lounge area. The fifth man was leaning up against the side wall looking out the window. I walked over to the men who were lounging to take the room's order, but as I left I glanced back at the man near the window. He turned around, almost like he felt my eyes looking in his direction. It was him. The man from the weird encounter earlier this shift.

I quickly left the room and put in their order and waited next to Jon. Should I tell him about the weird man or just wait and see what happens? I mean I would love to tell Jon right now, but I don't want to chance him dropping everything to go and threaten the poor old guy. Yeah, probably best to just keep it to myself for now.

Once the drinks were finished I walked back to VIP 4 and passed out the scotch to each of the men. As I left the room and started to walk back down the hallway a hand wrapped around my arm and pulled me back. I tried to scream but realized there was already a hand over my mouth. Where ever I was it was too dark to see, so I'd have no way of knowing if there is anything near me that I can use to my advantage.

"I'm going to take my hand off of your mouth, but don't scream. If you make any noise I won't hesitate to fix the problem. Got it?"

The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't pin who it might be. It belonged to a man for sure but not to a man I know very well. I nodded my head and waited for the man to remove his hand from my mouth. I knew screaming wouldn't be any sort of help for me considering we are still in the club, so nobody would even hear me. I know that Jon will notice my absence soon enough, so I just need to wait this psycho out.

He removed his hand from my mouth, turned me around and tied my hands together with something rough. "Thank you for doing as I asked. I know it may look like it right now, but I'm not a bad guy. I'm just desperate right now, and desperate people do things they wouldn't normally do."

"W-what do you want from me?" My mind rolled through all of the things a strange man might want from a young girl. I grew nauseas the more I thought.

"I just need answers. You look like someone I used to know…used to love."

"Who?"

"Her name was Jocelyn. She wa-"

I stopped him mid-sentence, "You knew Jocelyn?"

"Yes. Very well. I think you might be her daughter?"

"Yes," I wondered if it was wise for me to confirm his ideas.

"Look. I just need to know if I can trust you and then I'll untie you and turn on the lights. Do you work for your father or with him in any sort of way?"

"What? No, God no. I hate that man," I paused to try and think where this guy might know my parents from and then it hit me, "Are you a shadowhunter?"

The man laughed for a minute before answering. "No dear. I mean I'm not now, but I used to be. I grew up with your parents."

The man went silent, but I could hear him moving in the room. All of a sudden, the lights were on and I could see the man from the weird encounter earlier. I did a spin to see that he had taken me to the storage closet and had tied my hands together with old leather shoe ties.

"My name is Lucian, but you can call me Luke."

**Author Note:**

** So, we had some romancing and met a new character! What will Luke lead to for the story and will Jace and Clary become a thing so soon? Also, what was the deal with Jocelyn's smoothies? Anybody else think there was something fishy going on there, because I definitely think that was fishy.**

** Anyways, thank you guys for reading. It means the world to me! Happy late Saturday bros!**


	7. Underground

**Chapter 7: Underground**

**Clary's POV**

The last two and a half hours of my shift at work were a blur. My mind kept rolling over my encounter with that man, Luke. I knew Jon could tell that something was off with me, but he didn't bug me about it because I didn't stay near him long enough for it to come up in conversation. I knew I was going to have to fill him in on everything when we got home, but right now I was still processing what had just happened.

Our shift was coming to an end as Jon cleaned the last two glasses in front of him and I finished counting out my tip money. He looked at me from a few feet away, not much emotion was showing through his features except for curiosity. We left the club in silence, got on dad's Harley and made our way home. The elevator ride up the stairs was quiet, allowing the night to flash through my mind yet again.

Jon locked our door behind us and threw the keys on the dining table.

"So, are you going to speak, or do I need to start guessing what happened tonight?" I had my back turned to Jon as he started with the questions. "Was it a boy? Do I need to hunt down another creepy ma-"

"No," I turned around to face my brother, "not a creep. I don't really know what happened Jon."

His jaw clenched a little tighter as he made his way over to sit on the couch. I joined him on the opposite side and started trying to explain.

"It's nothing bad, really. I just…okay well it started with VIP 4. I served a group of men in there and as I was leaving one of them kind of…forced me into the storage closet."

Jon's jaw clenched tighter, his whole body stiffened at my words. I need to get to the point before he marches out of here and kills a man.

"He started questioning me about who I was because I looked like someone he used to love," I paused letting Jon think before continuing, "apparently he grew up with mom."

His eyes widened, "This guy knows our mom? How?"

"He told me that he was a shadowhunter and that he used to love her. At some point he was turned into a werewolf an-"

"You met a werewolf alone?" The anger was clear in Jon's voice.

"Yes. Jon. Can you cool it please I'm not enjoying your temper right now. Just let me explain everything."

After a moment of thought Jon nodded, relaxing into the couch cushions.

I took a breath before going through the conversation I'd had with Luke. He started off by asking me where she was and if she was okay and didn't like my answer. I could tell that this Luke guy really cared for our mom. He started explaining the circle more in depth to me. Apparently, he was our father's right hand man, and when he was turned into a werewolf our father changed the circle. Luke said he wanted to tell me more but that we'd have to meet at a more private location where the information would stay safe for sure. He wrote down an address and a time to meet on a sheet of paper and then he left me alone in that storage closet.

Jon thought for a moment as he took in the new information before speaking. "Why were you so hesitant to tell me all of that? That's not even bad information."

I looked down remembering the last thing Luke told me before he left that closet. "Luke told me about something father did to mother…it explains why she is the way she is."

"You mean why she went silent and couldn't even acknowledge her children anymore?"

I nodded.

"I thought that was just because our scum father was abusive." He said.

"No. He did something to her Jon. Something bad."

**Jace's POV**

Hodge hadn't given any of us a new mission since the Morgenstern siblings were brought into the picture. He's been so caught up trying to teach them the basics of shadowhunter's while also taking care of the institute since our parents are gone. Maryse and Robert have been in Idris for the last month on business with Max. To my knowledge Hodge hasn't told them about our new situation in fear that they would inform the clave.

Most of the time when Jon and Clary are here they are with Hodge learning, so none of us really see them aside from sometimes at training. They really don't have much to catch up on with training though, so it makes sense that they would be hitting the books more. I'm just getting antsy since I haven't killed a demon in so long.

You know what? Screw it.

I walked down the hall to Alec's room and let myself in. "I'm going to kill demons wanna come?" I looked around the room until I found Alec on the ground by his bed folding laundry.

He looked up at me obviously surprised I had just burst into his room, and then interested in my question. "Hodge finally gave us a new mission?"

I thought about his question hard before answering. Hodge hadn't given us the okay to go hunting, but if I told Alec that, then he wouldn't come have fun with me… "Yeah I just spoke with him before coming here. Izzy is busy, so it'll just be some good ole bro time for us."

His eyebrows shot up and a smile formed on his face as he threw his laundry back in the hamper and started to get ready. I went back to my room to get ready and then met Alec outside the institute's front door.

We spent the rest of the afternoon tracking down demons at random. Alec had asked me if there was a specific demon we were looking for on our mission and I made up some random lie about a shapeshifter down town harassing mundies. While we did capture and kill 4 demons, none of them were shape shifters.

"It's getting late Jace. We should head back and report to Hodge and grab some dinner."

I nodded, glancing around for a last minute headshot, "I'll report to Hodge if you pick up some Takis?"

Alec quickly agreed to Takis over food most likely made by Izzy, and we went our separate ways.

The institute came into view along with the barely visible figures belonging to none other than Jon and Clarissa Morgenstern. I stopped in my tracks as they turned the corner right before meeting with the institute. They weren't going in the direction of their apartment or their job…where could they be going?

My curiosity mixed with a small amount of suspicion, leading me to the decision that I should follow them. I don't think they have anything to hide. From what I can tell they have been completely honest with us so far, so what could go wrong?

**Clary's POV**

Jon and I concentrated hard as we tried to peel back the glamour in front of us. I noted that the task wasn't as complicated as it had been in the past few weeks. We started walking towards the small building once we'd both cleared away the glamour. The building looked like a closed down Chinese takeout restaurant at first glance, but we noted some symbols etched into the brick that weren't mundane in nature.

We didn't have to knock on the front door because the moment we stepped in front of it the door was opened. A big burly man gestured for us to come inside and we both did, Jon a little more reluctant than me. He was still pissed that Luke had forced me to listen to him the way he did.

The inside of the "takeout" place was pretty spacious. It was set up living room style with a couple couches, a coffee table and even a small TV hanging over a fireplace. Two bookshelves lined the back wall, both stuffed full with books.

People were scattered all over the room quietly chatting with each other, but it was obvious that their conversations were about my brother and I. None of them looked like the other, each had their own style and vibe surrounding them. I noticed that some of the men were the same ones from VIP 4 last night.

There were also two people apart from the rest in the fact that they were standing a questionable amount away from other people. One of them had green skin, white hair and black eyes. The other also had white hair, but her skin was blue and matched her blue eyes. They must be some kind of warlocks. Hodge gave us the intro to warlocks lesson last week. The one thing shared by everyone in this room was the intense fog of tension, touching us all.

I was shaken out of my thoughts when a man spoke up, "Welcome to our pack house."

"This is your pack house?" Jon asked with an emphasis on this.

Luke nodded, "It's a temporary house until we find something bigger, but for now it works." Luke moved in front of Jon and extended his hand.

All eyes were glued to this interaction. Jon was hesitant to accept Luke's hand, but finally did and they shook. I visibly saw some people release a breath they had been holding, and the tension in the air lessoned just a bit. I guess the pack wasn't expecting us to be nice or something. Weird.

"Everyone this is Clarissa and Jonathan Morgenstern. I believe that they can be a big addition to our movement if they choose to join. Please show them kindness and welcome them like you would one of our kind." Luke ushered us through the crowd of wolves and into another room that was empty aside for a large table sitting in the middle. He left us for about a minute before returning with the two people that had stood apart earlier.

The door was shut, but the tension from before had followed us in. "Who are they?" Jon asked before I could get the same question out of my mouth.

"My name is Catarina Loss and this is a dear friend of mine, Ragnor Fell."

Jon and I nodded at the two people and looked to Luke to explain. He stepped forward and did just that. "Catarina and Ragnor are both warlocks who are vital to our movement. We are in the beginning stages of recruiting right now and they are our first two warlock partners."

"What is your movement for?" I asked, very confused as how this had any connection to my mother, "And what does my mother have to do with any of this?"

Luke looked at the warlocks and back to us before sitting down at the table. We followed, and all sat. "Your mother is the reason this movement was created. She gave the order for it to be made."

I looked to Jon, surprised. He had his eyebrows furrowed in suspicion, "Explain."

"I know you know what the Circle is Clary, but do you Jon?" Luke asked, his eyes held a thick interest while they looked between my brother and I.

We both nodded, and Luke asked another question.

"Good, and what about the uprising?"

Both of us nodded again.

"So, you know how your mother and father murdered hundreds of shadowhunters?" Jon and I exchanged a glance as Luke hesitated before continuing, "And you also know about how your father was able to compel downworlders to join him? To kill for him?"

"Our father didn't tell us anything about this. We have recently learned some things about the uprising and the circle," Jon said. The tone of his voice holding irritation.

"We haven't been able to figure out what your father found or what he did to give him and your mother this ability," he paused looking at us both again before taking in a deep breath and sighing, "we had originally believed that your mother was in on it with your father, but that was before we received her messages."

"She sent you a message? What did it say?" Jon asked still irritated, but he sounded more intrigued now.

Luke nodded and looked to Catarina and Ragnor. "Your mother sent each of us a separate message. The one she sent me was about arranging this new movement, but the one she sent Ragnor-"

"Her message to me was an SOS." Ragnor said, interrupting Catarina. I'm sure the questions Jon and I were wondering were clear on our faces because after a moment of thick silence he answered mine. "It wasn't much, but basically she wrote that she needed help and was fearing for her life and both of yours."

My eyes widened as I thought of what father would have done to mother if she had been caught sending a message like that. I looked to Jon to find his jaw clenched and the same surprise I was feeling in lingered in his own eyes.

The meeting went on for about another hour as Luke explained their movement. Its main goal was to take down our father, but also figure out how he was controlling downworlders. The movement wants to stop him and prevent anyone else from following in our father's footsteps.

Luke explained to us that this movement was an underground movement, meaning that the shadowhunters had not been informed of it yet, and they were trying to keep it that way. They were afraid that the Clave would shut them down before they could even prove that they were a very needed movement. Once we'd heard all of the details Luke asked us if we would join. Jon and I had agreed to talk about it when we were home and we both assured Luke that we would inform him of our decision by noon tomorrow.

After our meeting Luke introduced us to all of the werewolves in his pack. I could sense that Jon was lightening up about the whole situation. He had taken a likening to a werewolf girl named Maia. She was absolutely beautiful with her brownish eyes and her brown curly hair. I knew Jon was very easily liked by the ladies from a few interactions I had witnessed at work.

My mind moved to Jace as I watched the two of them laugh about some joke my brother probably butchered. I imagined that Jace was most likely training right now back at the institute. I wonder if he could be trusted with what we've learned tonight. I know Jon and I were wanting to keep some things to ourselves, but I really don't think Jace would turn us in for joining this movement if he only knew the details of it.

Ugh. Who am I kidding I can't tell him any of this right now. I barely know him, and Luke already mentioned how important it was for this to stay underground.

**Jace's POV**

Two hours passed with them doing who knows what inside that werewolf den before they came out and started walking towards home. My mind was rolling with questions that I was afraid I wouldn't get an answer for without confronting the two of them about this little trip they've gone on. I want Jon or Clarissa to open up and tell me about this themselves, but will either of them ever do that? They are already keeping this a secret as is, so why would they tell me about it now?

The way I see it I have two options.

Option One: Tell Hodge. This is the option I should choose. It's the more logically option and it will probably be the quicker fix to the situation, but then there's option two.

Option Two: Woo Clary. Gain her trust and get her to open up to me. This option is more my style. It's not what Hodge would want me to do, which immediately feels more like me.

Huh. Decisions, decisions.

I hoped off of the building I'd been staked out on for the past two hours and started the trek back to the institute. My mind was still racing on what to do about the Morgenstern siblings. My mind told me to turn them into Hodge, Option One, but my heart told me to protect Clary, Option Two.

I don't know what it is about her. Girls throw themselves at me all the time. It's the very reason I glamour myself anytime I'm out doing mundane things. Don't get me wrong I love getting the attention from hot chicks, but when girls are constantly throwing themselves at you it gets a little old. Sure, every once in a while I'm into it, but lately it's just annoying.

My mind stopped running in circles about decisions, and instead started roaming over thoughts of Clarissa Morgenstern. She didn't throw herself at me, well except for when she was trying to fight me but that's completely different…or is it? Ugh I just wish I could read her.

I've flirted with her many times, but she rarely reacts like all of the other girls do. No. No, she's different. I crave her eyes being on me. I want her to look at me the way all of the other girls do, but she doesn't. When her eyes land on me they look innocent and intrigued, but not lustful. Maybe that's a good thing.

We haven't spent that much time together but during the times we have she makes me feel a certain way. That girl is so clumsy, I feel like I need to make sure and be there to catch her when she falls. The desire to protect her has hit me like a bus since the first moment I saw her. She was wearing Nike shorts and that t-shirt with a monkey on it, which I later learned to be her jammies.

I remember watching her brother come in and ask her about the bruise on her face. He'd mentioned wishing he could have _'taken the hit for her'_. Her own father, the man who was supposed to keep her safe put his hands on her. The thought makes me want to hunt him down and cause him the very pain he caused her, but worse. Maybe that's why I feel so protective over her. Maybe he's the reason…or maybe there's something else making me feel this sort of way about her.

My mind went from protecting Clary to chuckling about her quirks. Her eyes always seemed to light up at things that I'd never find interesting. Like last week when she'd discovered that portals existed. Or that one time when Alec had accidentally brought home her favorite dish from Takis. Or when I gave her that flower I'd found outside of a random building on 5th street. She'd taken it and put it in her hair and wore it for the rest of the afternoon. Her little jokes keep conversation funny and her laugh…angel, that laugh could cure cancer. It's melodic and contagious all at the same time.

_Damn._

What is she doing to me?

**Author Note:**

**So sorry that it's been ages since I last updated, but school drowns me sometimes and it's hard to find time to write. With that said, this chapter has opened up a whole new ball game for this story. Things are about to start going down as suspicion on the Morgenstern siblings grows larger and the new movement spreads throughout the underground of the shadow world.**

**What do you guys think about Jonathan having a romantic interest in Maia? I kind of like imagining them together. I mean in a world where Jon is somewhat of a good guy…idk maybe they might work! I guess you'll have to find out in the next few chapters!**

**Thank you guys for reading & happy break off of school everyone!**


	8. Adventure

**Chapter 8: Adventure**

Jocelyn's POV

_**flashback to 12 years ago**_

_ I had just woken up from sleep and went to wake up my children for breakfast. My son was curled up in a ball in his small bed, still deep in sleep. I gently shook him awake, allowing him to adjust to the light I'd already let in through the window. He eventually started to rub his eyes with his little hands and he sat up to look at me. _

_ "Good morning Jonny boy." _

_ "Hi mama. What's for breakfast?"_

_ I looked into his eyes, they used to be so green, but now they were a cloudy black. The green was barely even visible anymore. I sighed, "How do waffles and bacon sound?"_

_ He shook his head yes hard, his body filling with excitement. I chuckled at my boy. I'd never imagined him to turn out as sweet as he is considering the father figure he has to look up to. _

_ "Alrighty. You go ahead and get ready for the day and I'll go wake up Clare-bear."_

_ I left my son and went across the hall to Clary's room but was surprised to find her bed empty. Maybe she went to the kitchen while I was in Jon's room? _

_ I found the kitchen empty as well and glanced to the living room to find the front door wide open. My heart beat picked up as horrible thoughts of what could happen to a young child on their own flashed through my mind. I made my way outside, stumbling over our welcome mat, and thankfully saw my daughter in the distance. She was squatting down, and her mouth was moving like she was talking to something, but from my view nothing was near her. _

_ I made my way over to her to find out that I was wrong. There was something near her…a small faerie woman. Fear filled me as I took in what was happening. _

_ "Oh, hi mommy. This is my new servant," she said, her tiny voice strong and confident in her actions. _

_ I watched as my little girl forced the faerie to pull a piece of grass out of the ground and eat it whole. My heart beat grew rapid as it dawned on me. _

_ Valentine had done it to her too. _

**Jace's POV**

My palms were sweating slightly as I opened the door to Hodge's office. He looked up, setting his glasses down on his desk in front of some papers he had been reading. There were two comfy chairs planted in front of his desk reserved for meetings, or for me when I was wanting to bother him while he was at work.

"What can I do for you Jace?" Hodge asked, clasping his hands together like he usually does when he lectures me about responsibilities. He already knows that I'm about to tell him something he's not going to like.

"Hodge…I have some important intel you need to know," I paused thinking over my options once more before mentally preparing for whatever was about to come of this conversation, "before you yell at me, hear me out."

His eyes narrowed in on me, disappointment already emanating off of him.

"I was bored sitting around the institute, so I may have dragged Alec out and we may have killed a large amount of demons."

The disappointment quickly turned to anger as Hodge stood from his seat and started to pace, as he usually does during our conversations. "You went hunting without the proper approval? Jace how many times do I need to explain to you the repercussions for your actions?"

"Well considering that I don't recall many of the things from our meetings I would say tha-"

"I'm calling Alec down here. You both need to be punished for going behind my back and deliberately disobeying my orders. I am in charge here and you both need to learn how things work."

Hodge reached for the door handle but stopped as I quickly started speaking. "Hodge, I lied to Alec and told him you'd given us a mission. He doesn't deserve any kind of punishment." I'd imagine most people would be feeling guilt or shame right now, but I feel nothing. I guess I'm a little more shielded from feeling guilt due to the fact that I really don't care too much about most things. Oh, I'm going to be punished? Woopdy doo that sucks, but it's not going to kill me. If it's not going to kill me, then I really don't care what it does to me.

Hodge returned to his desk. I was surprised by this considering he usually would be towering over me right now trying to show some kind of authority. But now he is looking at me from his desk. All the anger from before seemed to dissipate.

I usually know how to respond to Hodge so that I end up on the winning side. I knew all of his go to reactions for certain things I do that irritate him, and I knew how he usually went about punishing me. Now…well now I have no clue what's about to happen and that makes this situation exciting.

Worth it.

"Jace. I promised your mother I would look after you when she sent you here. I have tried everything to keep that promise to her considering all that she's gone through, but now…I don't know if I can."

Mother. Oh, mother. He hadn't mentioned her since I was sent here. I try to keep my thoughts of her to a minimum because it usually makes me emotional, and I hate feeling weak. I love my mom, don't get me wrong, but she sent me here. She either couldn't handle me anymore after the death of my father or just didn't love me enough to keep me around. I don't know her reasons for sending me here, but I've never been able to imagine anything good.

"Do you want to go back to live with your mother?"

I shook out of my thoughts fast as his question replayed in my head. Living with my mother? I didn't even know that was still an option for me. I tried to imagine going back to Idris and living in that house. My old home. The thought made my skin crawl. I had grown so fond of the Lightwoods…I think leaving them would break me.

"I'm guessing the lack of response means you don't know?" Hodge spoke up again, but I didn't have an answer.

Thoughts of my mother flew throughout my mind, "Hodge…I-I love my mother, but she sent me here because she didn't want me. Why would I want to go back to that?"

Hodge's eyes grew sympathetic, "Jace, your mother didn't send you here because she didn't want you."

"Then why?"

"You were too young to understand what was going on at the time, but I don't see any hurt in explaining things to you now," Hodge took in a deep breath, like he was preparing, "your mother was abused by her parents growing up."

My jaw clenched instinctively, and I gripped the arm rests of the chair to prevent myself from getting up. I needed to hear the rest of the story.

"Not many people know about her past. The few that do know are Maryse, Robert and myself. After your father's death she fell into a deep depression and didn't see herself as fit to raise you. She looked to us in her unstable state for help, which is why we know of her past. Depression had been something she had dealt throughout her life due to her childhood trauma, but it had never been as bad as it was after Stephen's death."

"So, you did as she asked, took me and left her all alone? She could hurt herself." The anger had spread through my body and I no longer felt like listening to Hodge anymore, but I stayed to hear the end of his spiel.

"We didn't leave her alone Jace…we sent her to get help. She's been under the care of a warlock since you joined us here in New York. He's been watching over her and trying to cure her."

"What's the name of the warlock?" I wonder why he hadn't been successful yet in healing my mother.

"His name is Ragnor Fell."

**Clary's POV**

It has been almost a month since our first meeting with Luke's and his movement. We had officially joined the day after our first meeting and had started calling the movement Nightfall. We liked that name because in the mundane world creatures, like downworlders, are known to roam free in the night and freedom is what we were fighting for.

Jon and I had been sneaking away from work to attend meetings twice a week and so far, the Lightwoods don't seem to think anything is off. We have been working on recruiting a vampire representative for Nightfall, but they haven't given us a solid answer as to whether they are in or not. It's understandable that they are weary of this alliance due to the fact that it's mainly werewolves right now. Vampires and werewolves don't have the best history.

I grabbed a hair tie and put it safely on my wrist before locking the door and heading to the institute. Jon had to close the club last night, which means he didn't get home until 3 or 4 in the morning. He was still deep in sleep when I was ready to head out, so I figured I'd just go train on my own today.

Church greeted me at the front door to the Institute, doing figure eights between my shins. It always confuses me how he's not touchy with other people, but for some reason he loves me.

I scratched behind Church's grey ears before making my way down the hallway looking for anyone that I could find. Izzy had been locked away in her room for the past few days. Alec said she'd had a fight with her friend, Meliorn. Apparently, she was really upset with him and won't talk to anyone, so I figure I won't be seeing her anytime soon.

The halls were quieter than usual, which says a lot considering the halls are always silent. I rounded a corner and the faintest sound of keys hit my ears. As I walked towards the end of this hall, the sound of a piano grew louder and louder until I was standing in front of an unfamiliar door. I'd never really roamed the institute before. Jon and I usually stuck to the training room, library and kitchen.

I knocked on the door, but nobody responded, and the piano music continued. They must not have heard me. I wrapped my hand around the cold doorknob and let myself into the room. The space was dimly lit, only one window allowed a small amount of light in. To my left was a variety of instruments hanging on the wall and to my right was Jace.

His body flowed with the music coming from the grand piano like he was a part of it. I had always wanted to play the piano, but we'd never had enough money to buy lessons let alone the instrument.

As I walked closer to Jace, I began to feel like I was intruding and decided to turn around and leave before he noticed my presence. Just as my hand grasped the doorknob once again, the sound stopped, and I heard my name.

**Jace's POV**

I'd heard the door open as I played one of my favorite songs by Joep Beving, "Midwayer". I didn't turn around, expecting the visitor to be Hodge. I didn't want to talk to Hodge. As the footsteps came nearer to me I realized it couldn't be him. The steps were too light footed. I took a guess and called out her name, stopping my song.

"Clary." I turned around to see her holding the door handle. Was she leaving?

"Jace…I'm sorry if I interrupted your playing. I-I just heard the song and came to see where it was coming from."

Her cheeks slowly turned red as I looked her over. Usually I'd try to be subtle when checking a girl out, but lately I haven't been myself. I started at her feet. She was wearing her usual grey and black new balances, a pair of joggers and green hoody that made her eyes stand out.

My eyes locked with hers as I stood to walk to her. "I didn't know you were coming by today."

She was still blushing. Cute. "Um yeah my boss called and told me I had today off, so I figured I might as well come here."

"I'm glad you came. What are you going to do today? Lessons with Hodge or training?" I asked.

She seemed to think for a second before hesitantly responding, "Well…I was actually wondering if you guys wanted to go out and do something fun?"

My eyebrows shot up. So far, the Morgenstern siblings had only come to learn, but fun was new. "You want to have some fun?"

I noticed that she was fiddling her thumbs. Could she be nervous? "Yeah…do you have anything in mind?" She asked, her thumbs dancing faster around each other.

I thought over our options. New York had endless ways to find fun, but none of them really screamed out at me. We could go to a club later, but that's what Izzy always picked for fun nights out, which means that's what we did every time we wanted to have fun. I did like going out to the club, but I want to do something new. Plus, Jon and Clary work at a club, so I'm sure that it wouldn't be their go-to hang out option either.

Ooooo. Wait. I have a great idea. "How do you feel about traveling Clary?"

**Clary's POV**

"Come on let me in Izzy!" I had been knocking on her door for what felt like thirty minutes but was probably only five. She finally opened the door.

"What?" Izzy asked.

I knew something was truly wrong with Izzy when I registered that she was wearing sweats. A couple weeks ago she was supposed to take over my lessons for the day, but instead of teaching me about Idris she taught me the top 10 reasons why sweats are a 'no no'. In my opinion sweats are a blessing from God…or well the angel I guess. It's still weird to say things in the name of the angel.

"We are going on an adventure," Izzy tried to shut the door on me, but I was too quick and managed to slip inside her room. "Not so fast Izzy."

Her shoulders slumped as she sat on her bed and hugged a pillow, "Clary I'm not in the mood for an adventure. I just want to sit here and wallow."

I squinted my eyes at her, determined to convince Izzy that our adventure was worth it. It would also be really good for her to get out and forget about her problems with this Meliorn guy for while too.

"You are going to like where we are going."

Izzy rolled her eyes, "Oh another trip to Takis? Or let me guess. We are going to the club to hunt tonight?"

"Nope."

"Then where?"

I looked her dead in the eyes. I didn't actually know where we were going because Jace wouldn't tell me. But, I have a good feeling about this.

**Half an hour later.**

After Izzy finished packing we met up with Jace, an irritated Alec and a half asleep Jon. I'd managed to get Jon on the phone after the 5th time of calling him and ordered him to meet us here in half an hour. I knew he was tired, but I also knew that Jon loved a good adventure.

Jace didn't mention much other than he'd made a few calls and we were expected to arrive at our first destination before noon.

It wasn't long before we were standing in front of an old apartment in Brooklyn. Before we could make it halfway up the stairs, the front door opened and revealed none other than…my boss?

H-he's a warlock? His eyes are definitely his mark. They resemble a yellowish-green cat's eye. How had we never noticed this before? I looked over at Jon to see that he was just as surprised as I was. I thought about all of the times I'd seen Magnus and realized that Jon and I actually never saw him at work. I think we've only ever been around him two or three times and that must have been before we learned about glamours.

"Is it ready?" Jace asked Magnus.

A cat came into view in the doorway and meowed up at Magnus. "Oh, come here Chairmen Meow," Magnus picked the cat up and pet it in his arms. "Yes. Come in and I'll send you off."

Alec's head shot towards Jace, an angry questioning look clear on his face. Jace gave off his usual careless smirk along with a shrug and headed into the warlock's apartment. We all followed behind Jace and ended up in a rather grand looking living room.

Magnus spoke with Jace for a minute separately as we all stood in his living room staring into…a portal.

Alec was ranting to Izzy about all of the reasons why us portaling somewhere only Jace knew was a horrible idea. You know for a parabatai, Alec really doesn't seem to trust Jace's decisions much at all.

Neither Jon or I had ever been through a portal, let alone seen a portal. I looked over at Jon. His body was tense, but I could tell he was intrigued by this adventure. I'm not gonna lie my nerves are running wild right now, but this feels right. The idea of getting caught is making this all so much more exciting. Jace is definitely rubbing off on me.

"Okay everyone go through the portal," Magnus ordered, "except for the dark haired boy. What's your name?" Magnus pointed to Alec and winked.

"Alec. Alec Lightwood." His cheeks grew red.

While they spoke to each other, Jace told us the place to imagine in our heads when stepping into the portal. Jace and Izzy went first, then Jon, me and lastly Alec.

Going through the portal felt like I was flying and falling all at the same time. The closest thing I can compare it to is that feeling you get on those rollercoasters that go high into the air and just drop. One thing I'm sure of is that I'm definitely doing that again.

The exhilarating feeling of falling ended as my body hit ground, or I guess I should say body. I opened my eyes to see Jace staring up at me. I wonder if he tried to catch me or if I just caught him off guard and crushed him.

A stray blonde curl got caught in Jace's eyelashes, so I pushed it out of the way. Everything around us seemed to vanish except for the feeling of our hearts both beating rapidly. One of his hands was on my shoulder and the other on the small of my back. I was on my forearms, so our faces were closer together than they'd ever been before. As he smiled up at me the only thing I could think about was how intimate this moment felt.

Jace's smile quickly disappeared and his eyes turned serious. He rolled us over to the right fast. His body was closer to mine now, almost like a protective barrier from something.

"Ugh. That's gonna leave a mark," Jon groaned.

I looked at the spot Jace and I had just been in to find my brother flat on the ground. A giggle escaped as I looked up at Jace, now hovering over me.

"Jace. You better give me a good reason why you are on top of my sister right now. You don't want to find out what will happen if I don't like your answer."

Jace leaned down and quickly whispered in my ear before getting up and pulling me with him. He started talking with Izzy and Jon, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. I was too focused on replaying what he's just whispered to me in my head.

_We're not done here Red._

Alec fell from the sky about two minutes later and we wall looked at what was in front of us on the horizon. Izzy was gleaming with joy at our new destination. Jon and I were both confused but intrigued none the less.

"Jace you do realize if we get caught by Hodge he will rain hell fire on us?" Alec questioned, but it sounded more like a statement.

Izzy's eyes showed excitement, "While I do love this destination, I have to agree with Alec. Isn't this illegal according to the clave?"

We all looked at Jace who was standing at the top of the hill we had landed on. He looked back at us all.

"Great adventures are full of risks. Now hush up and let's go break some rules."

**Author Note:**

** Good quarantine afternoon Broskis. This chapter wasn't very action filled, but don't fret. Chapter 9 will make up for it! I don't really have much to say other than the next chapter should be up within the next weekish. Lmk where you all think they've portaled to in the reviews!**

** Y'all stay home and stay safe out there.**


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